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INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION 


JAMES  E.  RUSSELL 
FREDERICK  G.  BONSER 


rriJI.lSIl!;i)    MY 

.  (Eulumbta 

X1-;\V   YORK  CIT 
1912 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION 


JAMES  E.  RUSSELL,  PH.D.,  LL.D. 
DEAN  OF  TEACHERS  COLLEGE,  COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY 


and 


FREDERICK  G.  BONSER,  PH.D. 

ASSISTANT  PROFESSOR  OF  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 
TEACHERS  COLLEGE.  COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY 


PUBLISHED  BY 

a  (Collrgr.  dnlnmbia  Hninr  rBttg 
NEW  YORK  CITY 
1912 


CONTENTS 


Page 

I.    THE  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRIAL  LIFE i 

JAMES  E.  RUSSELL 


II.    FUNDAMENTAL  VALUES  IN  INDUSTRIAL 

EDUCATION 23 

FREDERICK  G.  BONSER 


267769 


THE 
SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRIAL  LIFE 

JAMES  E.  RUSSELL 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRIAL  LIFE* 


The  American  school  is  under  fire — it  is  always  under  fire. 
Just  now  it  is  said  that  its  curriculum  is  overloaded  with  fads 
and  frills  which  burden  the  child  and  hamper  his  training  in 
subjects  essential  to  his  success  in  life.  Public  opinion  is 
critical  of  a  system  which  makes  easy  the  advancement  of  a 
few  to  positions  of  commanding  influence,  but  which  provides 
no  vocational  training  for  the  many  who  can  not  afford  to 
remain  in  school  beyond  the  elementary  grades.  The  demand 
is  for  equality  of  opportunity  in  education  without  regard  to 
social  rank  or  wealth  or  any  special  privilege,  that  kind  of 
equality  which  enables  one  to  become  a  good  American  citi- 
zen, and  which,  as  I  understand  it,  is  established  on  the  abil- 
ity to  earn  a  decent  livelihood  and  the  determination  to  make 
one's  life  worth  the  living. 

The  instruction  given  in  our  public  schools  is  chiefly  of 
two  kinds :  ( i )  humanistic,  including  language  and  literature, 
history  and  civics,  and  the  fine  arts;  and  (2)  scientific,  includ- 
ing mathematics,  geography,  physics,  chemistry,  and  biology. 
Our  schools  also  provide  for  training  in  the  practical  arts 
which  are  required  in  the  study  of  these  subjects,  preeminently 
the  arts  of  reading,  writing,  singing,  and  drawing.  Of  late 
years  the  attention  given  to  hygiene  has  begotten  systematic 
training  in  gymnastics  and  athletic  games.  Our  school  work, 
however,  isJgQQkJti^zJepn  of  reproach  with  some,  but  prop- 
erly understood  it  stands  above  criticism.  That  which  is 
worth  knowing  about  human  progress  is  for  the  most  part 
contained  in  books.  The  scientific  studies,  as  well  as  the 

*  Reprinted  from  the  EDUCATIONAL  REVIEW,  New  York,  December,  1909. 


2  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

humanistic,  have  been  recorded  in  books;  indeed,  it  would 
hardly  be  creditable  to  our  civilization  if  the  achievements  of 
one  generation  were  not  made  available  for  the  generations 
that  follow  after.  And  what  form  more  enduring,  what  form 
more  available,  than  in  writing  which  may  be  read  by  all 
who  are  willing  to  master  the  conventional  arts  confirmed  by 
use  and  tradition!  If  our  schools  are  culpably  bookish,  it  is 
because  our  teachers  misuse  the  book  and  confound  methods 
of  teaching  with  the  acquisition  of  knowledge.  Given  some- 
thing to  learn,  whether  contained  in  a  book  or  not,  it  is  the 
teacher's  business  to  see  that  the  learner  approaches  his  task 
in  such  a  way  as  to  make  his  progress  certain  and  the  results 
secure.  If  motor  expression  will  help  ease  the  way  or  better 
(Jefine  the  end,  the  good  teacher  will  surely  use  it.  And  one 
should  know  that  reading,  writing,  and  singing  are  as  truly 
means  of  motor  expression  as  drawing  or  dancing  or  handi- 
work. In  so  far,  therefore,  as  the  aim  of  learning  is  to  acquire 
knowledge,  there  is  no  good  reason  for  spending  an  hour  in 
manipulation  when  the  fact  may  be  as  well  taught  without 
it  in  a  minute.  On  the  other  hand,  the  fact  which  calls  for 
motor  expression  and  the  process  which  demands  technical 
skill,  may  never  be  acquired  in  their  completeness  without 
persistent  drill.  But  drill  for  the  sake  of  technical  skill  is 
one  thing;  motor  expression  for  the  sake  of  clarifying, 
strengthening,  and  assimilating  knowledge  is  another  thing. 
To  learn  by  doing  is  well  enough,  if  there  is  no  better  way; 
to  do,  without  learning  from  it,  is  to  drop  to  the  level  of  the 
brute,  a  travesty  on  pedagogical  insight. 

The  significance  of  motor  expression  in  the  learning  process 
came  to  consciousness  in  our  schools  only  a  generation  ago; 
indeed,  we  are  only  now  becoming  alive  to  its  place  and  pos- 
sibilities. Some  got  the  notion  at  first  that  there  was  a 
magical  charm  in  the  training  of  hand  and  eye.  Manual 
training  was  heralded  as  the  remedy  for  all  defects  of  vision, 
mental  and  physical,  and  the  claim  was  made  that  in  whittling 
paper-knives  out  of  wood  the  boy  was  really  shaping  his  own 
character.  To  follow  exactly  the  specifications  of  a  blue- 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRIAL  LIFE  3 

print  drawing  was  thought  to  be  the  surest  way  of  bringing 
home  the  lessons  of  honesty,  sobriety,  and  truthfulness.  Until 
within  ten  years,  manual  training  was  defended  by  its  over- 
zealous  advocates  on  the  grounds  of  its  value  as  a  mental  and 
moral  discipline.  It  is  difficult  for  us  to  see,  even  after  the 
lapse  of  so  few  years,  why  so  great  worth  was  imputed  to 
manual  dexterity  and  so  little  value  attached  to  good  reading 
or  legible  writing  or  correct  translation.  It  is  past  our  com- 
prehension even  now  how  any  one  could  have  supposed  that 
(mere  doing  could  rank  in  educational  value  with  the  doing  of 
something  worth  while.  The  fact  is,  of  course,  that  no  one 
really  thought,  regardless  of  what  may  have  been  said,  that 
making  nothing  and  making  something  were  one  and  the 
same.  The  early  projects  in  manual  training  may  seem  to 
us  trivial,  but  their  value  i-  nut  to  be  reckoned  in  terms  of 
accomplishment,  but  rather  in  terms  of  effort,  They  represent 
an  effort  to  secure  at  any  cost  the  motor  expression  demanded 
by  child  nature.  If  the  teacher  of  the  humanities  and  the 
sciences  would  not  employ  it  intelligently,  here  was  a  group 
of  enthusiasts  who  would  use  it  anyway,  unintelligently  if 
necessary.  Public  opinion,  not  always  a  safe  pedagogical 
guide,  supported  them,  and  the  result  is  a  place  in  the  cur- 
riculum for  a  subject  which  few  know  how  to  teach  and 
which  perhaps  no  one  should  teach  in  the  way  at  first  pro- 
posed. 

In  supporting  the  demand  for  manual  training  in  the  indus- 
trial and  household  arts,  public  opinion  outran  the  educa- 
tional theorists.  Fathers  and  mothers  care  relatively  little 
for  formal  discipline  of  any  kind.  They  want  tangible  results. 
They  want  their  children  to  be  able  to  read,  write,  and  reckon. 
Some  go  so  far  as  to  ask  for  an  appreciation  of  good  litera- 
ture and  the  fine  arts,  and  a  working  knowledge  of  history, 
civics,  and  the  sciences,  but  such  are  always  in  the  minority. 
The  one  thing  that  every  parent  wants,  the  one  thing  that 
gives  him  most  anxious  thought,  is  how  best  to  make  his  child 
self-supporting.  In  manual  training  he  sees  a  chance  to 
develop  that  skill  of  hand  required  by  the  craftsman;  in  the 


4  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

technical  processes  he  discovers  a  likeness  to  the  processes 
with  which  he  is  acquainted  in  the  home  or  in  the  industrial 
world.  The  study  promises  material  reward  and  he  seizes 
the  chance  to  turn  it  to  account  in  the  vocational  training 
of  his  child. 

Manual  training  in  some  form  is  here  to  stay.  The  teacher 
needs  it  in  teaching  not  one  subject,  but  most  subjects;  the 
public  demands  it  because  it  offers  the  most  obvious  means  of 
beginning  the  training  for  vocational  life.  Under  the  com- 
bined influence  of  pedagogical  needs  and  public  demands,  the 
content  of  our  manual  training  courses  has  been  radically 
changed  within  the  past  decade.  In  the  effort  to  give  free 
expression  to  the  child,  all  manner  of  projects  have  been 
carried  out  through  hand  work.  Woolly  sheep  have  sported 
with  polar  bears  under  fir  trees  set  in  a  desert  of  sand.  Book- 
binding and  block  houses,  Indian  war  bonnets  and  water- 
wheels,  ink  wells  and  Navajo  blankets,  bent  iron  jimcracks 
and  raffia  baskets,  book  shelves  and  dolls'  clothes,  broom  hold- 
ers and  picture  frames — all  these  and  a  thousand  more  mixed 
up  in  indescribable  confusion !  Is  it  any  wonder  that  some 
one  should  raise  the  cry  of  fads  and  frills?  The  wonder  is 
that  any  one  should  try  to  justify  such  work  in  school  on 
any  ground  other  than  mere  recreation.  Absurd  as  it  may 
seem  when  one  reads  over  a  list  of  manual  projects  actually 
put  before  our  children  in  school,  there  has  been  consistent 
progress  along  two  lines:  (i)  in  the  usableness  of  the  com- 
pleted article,  and  (2)  in  the  design  and  artistic  finish  given 
to  it.  The  difficulty  of  children's  making  really  usable  things 
contrasted  with  the  ease  of  executing  artistic  design  has  largely 
changed  the  character  of  manual  training  within  the  past  ten 
years.  In  fact,  manual  training  to-day  is  little  more  than 
applied  design.  In  this  respect  it  is  quite  worth  while.  It 
is  the  best  thing  that  has  come  into  our  schools  in  recent 
years,  and  we  can  not  afford  to  lose  it. 

Manual  training  as  applied  design  is  a  subject  quite  dif- 
ferent from  the  sloyd  and  formal  projects  of  twenty  years 
ago.  If  manual  discipline  is  no  longer  wanted  for  itself,  one 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRIAL  LIFE  5 

may  ask  why  the  term  manual  training  should  be  retained. 
Why  not  combine  with  drawing  and  call  it  all  "  art "  or 
"  applied  design  "  ?  Another  question — Why  should  we  have 
distinct  courses  in  the  household  arts  in  the  lower  grades  of 
the  elementary  schools?  The  work  done  in  these  lines  is 
either  applied  design  or  training  in  the  technic  of  house- 
wifery. This  consideration  raises  another  question:  What 
is  the  place  of  vocational  training  in  the  elementary  school? 
One  characteristic  of  the  American  school  system  is  appar- 
ently fixed.  The  work  of  the  first  six  years  of  the  elementary 
school  is  fundamental,  the  same  for  all  regardless  of  sex  or 
future  occupation.  Six  years  of  schooling  is  the  usual  legal 
requirement,  and  there  is  a  consensus  of  opinion  that  special- 
ization should  not  begin  before  the  twelfth  or  thirteenth  year 
of  age.  Some  would  defer  it  two  years  or  more,  but  the 
number  of  children  leaving  school  at  or  before  the  end  of 
the  sixth  grade  warrants  the  attempt  to  make  the  work  of 
the  first  six  years  of  the  elementary  course  complete  in  itself, 
and  as  comprehensive  as  possible.  Such  a  course  should  be 
cultural  in  the  best  sense,  a  course  calculated  to  put  the  child 
in  possession  of  his  inheritance  as  a  human  being  and  fit  him 
to  enter  upon  whatever  work  may  be  expected  of  him  in  the 
years  immediately  following.  With  six  years  of  good  funda- 
mental training,  the  child  is  ready  at  thirteen  or  fourteen  to 
look  forward  to  his  life  work.  The  physiological  age  suggests 
differentiation  for  the  sexes.  For  those  who  go  to  college, 
it  is  time  to  begin  specialization  along  academic  lines;  for 
those  who  are  to  become  artizans  or  farmers  or  tradesmen, 
as  soon  as  possible,  it  is  time  to  begin  vocational  training. 
Specialization  at  the  age  of  twelve  to  fourteen  years  should 
begin  gradually,  and  in  the  vocational  lines  it  should  be  essen- 
tially preparatory  to  the  later  years  of  trade  school  or  appren- 
tice training.  My  point  is  that  when  the  boy  or  girl  hears 
the  call  of  vocational  life,  specialization  should  begin  and 
gradually  narrow  into  technical  training  for  specific  occu- 
pations— for  some  at  the  age  of  twenty-five  in  professions; 
for  others  at  the  age  of  sixteen  in  the  trades.  Between  these 


6  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

extremes  will  be  found  most  vocations  in  which  men  and 
women  engage.  A  fundamental  course  of  six  years,  at  once 
cultural  and  preparatory  to  the  widest  possible  range  of  dif- 
ferentiated courses  beginning  with  the  seventh  grade,  is  the 
chief  desideratum  of  our  American  school  system. 

The  present  curriculum  of  our  public  schools,  as  I  have 
already  shown,  is  chiefly  composed  of  humanistic  and  scien- 
tific subjects.  We  have  made  an  attempt  to  introduce  certain 
industrial  and  household  arts,  but  they  are  so  lacking  in 
coherency  as  to  raise  serious  doubts  of  their  value  as  funda- 
mental subjects.  Nevertheless,  there  is  another  subject  of 
instruction  as  fundamental  as  any  now  contained  in  the  cur- 
riculum. If  the  humanistic  studies  are  essential  in  the  train- 
ing of  the  child  in  his  social  relations,  and  the  scientific  in 
his  relations  to  the  physical  world  in  which  he  lives,  it  is 
equally  important  that  economic  studies  be  included  in  the 
curriculum  to  provide  instruction  in  the  industries  from  which 
man  gains  his  material  possessions.  Of  course,  I  do  not 
mean  economic  studies  in  the  elementary  school  for  the  sake 
of  technical  training  in  any  industry  any  more  than  I  advo- 
cate the  study  of  poetry  in  the  grades  for  the  training  of 
the  poet,  or  design  for  the  artist,  or  biology  for  the  physician. 
I  mean  the  study  of  industries  for  the  sake  of  a  better  per- 
spective on  man's  achievements  in  controlling  the  production, 
distribution,  and  consumption  of  the  things  which  constitute 
his  material  wealth.  For  these  he  labors  his  life  long;  on  the 
use  he  makes  of  them  depend  much  of  his  own  happiness 
and  the  well-being  of  his  fellows.  It  is  only  by  means  of 
such  studies,  whether  pursued  systematically  in  schools  or 
picked  up  under  the  adverse  conditions  of  after  life,  that  we 
acquire  the  basis  of  judgment  concerning  the  acts  and  aspira- 
tions of  our  fellow-men,  either  those  who  provide  the  capital 
for  exploiting  natural  resources  or  those  who  do  the  work 
required  in  the  several  industrial  pursuits.  In  our  political 
life,  no  knowledge  is  of  more  consequence  than  that  which 
is  concerned  with  the  relations  of  capital  and  labor;  for  us 
as  a  people  there  is  nothing  more  to  be  desired  than  a  sympa- 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRIAL  LIFE  7 

thetic  understanding  of  the  conditions  under  which  men  earn 
their  living.  Is  a  liberal  education  possible  in  this  age  with- 
out a  knowledge  of  these  things  which  more  than  all  others 
make  men  free  or  leave  them  slaves  ? 

A  threefold  division  of  the  curriculum — humanistic,  scien-    / 
tific,  industrial — has  the  advantage  over  the  present  twofold    | 
division  not  only  in  providing  a  more  liberal  education,  but 
also  in  affording  a  better  preparation  for  the  differentiated 
courses  which  begin  in  the  grammar  school.     The  training 
now  given  in  language  and  literature,  and  in  the  arts  and 
sciences  of  the  elementary  school,  is  of  prime  importance  as 
a  preparation  for  any  course  that  a  child  may  pursue  later 
on;  in  some  respects,  no  other  training  can  approach  it  in 
practical  worth  even  for  the  work  of  the  lowest  grade  of 
trade  school.     Nevertheless,  it  is  an  assured  fact  that  our 
boys  and  girls  do  not  enter  industrial  life  with  the  same 
confidence  that  they  exhibit  in  other  fields  for  which  their 
academic  training  has  fitted  them.     They  see  no  fascination   | 
in  industrial  activity  and  they  have  no  basis  of  judgment  for    I 
choosing  any  particular  career.     The  fault  is  largely  due  to 
avoidance  of  industrial  instruction  in  the  schools,  as  some- 
thing degrading  if  not  positively  unclean,  and  the  setting  up  / 
in  its  place  of  unattainable  ideals  at  variance  with  the  actual  / 
conditions  of  society.    I  would  not  check  the  ambition  of  any  * 
American  child,  however  high  the  goal — it  is  his  birthright 
as  an  American  citizen — but  I  would  have  the  school  help 
him  define  the  aim  of  his  life  in  terms  of  his  own  natural 
endowment  and  possible  attainment.     The  child  has  a  right 
to  this  kind  of  guidance;  the  school  must  give  it,  and  what 
the  school  gives  must  be  determined  by  sympathetic  instruc- 
tion along  the  lines  leading  to  the  goal. 

The  public,  in  giving  support  to  manual  training  and  the 
household  arts,  undoubtedly  intends  these  subjects  to  promote 
closer  relationship  between  the  school  and  vocational  life; 
some  teachers  of  these  subjects  unquestionably  do  use  them 
with  precisely  this  intent;  but  efficient  instruction  presupposes 
something  definite  to  teach  and  a  consistent  way  of  teaching 


8  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

it.  Subtract  from  our  present  manual  training  course  that 
which  is  essentially  applied  design  and  those  exercises  which 
are  intended  to  afford  motor  expression  in  the  learning  of 
other  subjects  in  the  curriculum,  and  what  is  left  is  an  inco- 
herent, unorganized  series  of  projects  without  purposes  or 
educational  value.  However  good  the  artistic  treatment,  and 
however  desirable  the  assistance  given  in  acquiring  knowl- 
edge of  other  subjects,  the  results  now  obtained  contrast  most 
unfavorably  with  what  might  be  secured  from  a  series  of 
projects  harmoniously  organized  to  attain  a  specific  end  and 
at  the  same  time  incidentally  to  provide  for  the  necessary 
motor  expression  and  all  needful  application  of  artistic 
design.  In  other  words,  motor  expression  and  art  training 
may  as  well  be  secured  as  by-products  in  doing  something 
worth  while  as  by  making  them  ends  in  themselves.  \Yhat- 
ever  value  may  attach  to  the  subject-matter  in  such  procedure 
is  clear  gain.  The  plan  I  propose,  therefore,  is  intended  to 
retain  all  that  is  of  real  worth  in  manual  training  and  at 
the  same  time  to  get  something  still  more  to  be  desired.  It 
is  precisely  the  plan  long  followed  by  good  teachers  of  reading 
and  writing.  The  child  in  his  reading  may  as  well  read  the 
best  of  literature  as  the  poorest,  and  in  writing  learn  how 
to  express  himself  clearly,  concisely,  and  in  good  form  as 
to  follow  everlastingly  a  copy-plate. 

It  may  be  interjected  at  this  point  that  some  teachers  of 
manual  training  have  used  the  subject  as  a  means  of  intro- 
ducing the  child  to  the  complexities  of  social  life,  that  it  has 
been  a  means  of  socializing  him,  that  it  has  given  him  a 
chance  to  find  himself  in  the  midst  of  a  highly  artificial  and 
conventional  environment.  If  this  be  true,  and  the  aim  is 
certainly  not  an  unworthy  one,  the  end  may  as  well  be  attained 
by  putting  the  activities  proposed  on  the  high  plane  of  real  life. 

The  problem,  then,  is  to  organize  the  information  within 
the  industrial  field  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  it  valuable,  first, 
in  the  education  of  the  masses  and,  second,  in  technical 
training  for  specific  vocations.  There  is  no  lack  of  informa- 
tion; what  is  knowable  in  any  industry  is  beyond  the  reach 


THE  SCHOOL  AN&  INDUSTRIAL  LIFE  9 

of  any  one  save  the  most  expert  specialist,  and  even  he  is 
tantalized  by  his  inability  to  grasp  all  within  his  reach.  That 
a  field  is  large,  overwhelmingly  large,  ought  not  to  deter  the 
educator  from  entering  it.  The  scientific  field,  for  example, 
is  large,  overwhelmingly  large,  but  when  it  is  systemat- 
ically classified  the  teacher  is  in  a  position  to  select  that  which 
may  have  educational  value  even  for  the  youngest  child. 
Without  classification  it  might  be  possible  to  teach  much  of 
practical  value,  but  the  school  course  from  infancy  to  adult 
life  would  present  a  sorry  spectacle.  The  logical  arrangement 
of  scientific  information  is  the  only  criterion  of  the  worth 
of  the  completed  scientific  course.  The  selection  of  materials 
for  presentation  at  any  particular  stage  depends  upon  peda- 
gogical insight  which  takes  into  account  both  the  goal  to  be 
reached  and  the  peculiarities  of  the  learner.  The  way  in 
which  children  learn  determines  the  method  of  approach  to 
any  subject,  but  it  sets  no  standard  of  worth  upon  the  acquisi- 
tion. The  only  criterion  of  excellence  is  to  be  found  within 
the  subject  itself  in  its  relations  to  human  needs.  How  the 
child  learns  that  2x2=4  is  a  problem  in  psychology;  whether 
2x2  is  actually  4,  what  relations  it  bears  to  other  mathematical 
facts,  and  whether  it  is  worth  learning  at  all,  are  problems 
reaching  far  beyond  child-psychology.  In  classifying  the 
information  within  a  given  field,  we  establish  standards  by 
which  we  judge  the  relative  worth  of  component  parts  and 
discriminate  between  what  is  essential  or  characteristic,  and 
what  is  accidental  or  accessory.  Such  categories  we  have  in 
the  humanities  and  the  sciences,  and  they  control  the  trend 
of  instruction  throughout  the  school  course.  We  need  such  a 
guide  to  the  industries  in  order  that  every  step  from  the 
kindergarten  on  to  the  technical  school  may  fit  into  our  plan 
for  industrial  education. 

Much  confusion  in  the  work  of  manual  training  has  come 
from  a  failure  to  distinguish  between  the  psychological  guide 
to  methods  of  teaching  and  organizing  subject-matter,  and 
the  logical  guide  to  the  sequence  of  topics  and  the  value  of 
the  component  parts.  The  need  of  food,  clothing,  and  shelter, 


io  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

for  example,  is  easily  brought  home  to  a  child.  The  psychical 
reaction  to  the  suggestion  that  he  satisfy  these  needs  for  him- 
self is  an  excellent  starting-point  for  the  study  of  primitive 
life;  it  gives  a  splendid  clue  to  ways  of  approaching  certain 
fundamental  industrial  processes,  and  for  that  purpose  may 
often  be  used  advantageously  in  teaching.  But  to  set  up  this 
principle  as  a  guide  for  making  courses  of  study  is  to  con- 
found means  and  ends.  Everything  worth  having  in  this 
life  has  a  place  in  the  gratification  of  human  wants — language 
and  literature,  science  and  fine  arts,  politics,  law,  and  religion, 
no  less  than  food,  clothing,  and  shelter.  What  is  suitable  food, 
how  it  is  produced,  distributed,  and  prepared  for  eating,  and 
what  becomes  of  it  in  nutrition  is  a  subject  for  study  quite 
apart  from  the  satisfaction  of  hunger.  The  need  of  sustaining 
life  may  make  the  study  of  great  importance,  but  it  suggests 
no  classification  of  the  knowledge  abounding  in  the  scientific 
and  industrial  processes.  Likewise  the  need  of  speech  for  the 
interchange  of  ideas  gives  no  clue  to  the  systematic  structure 
of  language,  to  say  nothing  of  the  vocabulary  and  the  gram- 
matical characteristics  of  any  particular  language.  The  con- 
clusion, therefore,  is  that  the  method  of  rediscovery  of  ways 
and  means  of  satisfying  human  needs  is  no  sufficient  guide 
either  to  what  children  should  learn  or  to  the  sequence  of 
materials  employed  in  instruction. 

The  industrial  processes  by  which  man  acquires  his  material 
possessions  and  shapes  them  according  to  his  desires,  are 
directed  to  the  transformation  of  natural  resources.  Raw 
materials  are  produced  and  worked  over;  they  are  distributed 
and  put  to  use.  Each  step,  if  properly  taken,  adds  to  their 
value.  What  constitutes  value  and  what  means  are  employed 
to  effect  the  change  should  be  made  the  subject  of  instruc- 
tion. True,  the  amount  of  human  labor  involved  is  immeasur- 
able, the  variety  of  human  occupation  almost  inconceivable, 
and  the  range  of  productive  activity  wellnigh  beyond  our 
understanding,  but  the  fundamental  processes  are  limited  and 
relatively  simple  in  their  operation. 

For  pedagogical  purposes,  the  materials  of  most  signifi- 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRIAL  LIFE  n 

cance  in  the  industries  are  (i)  foods,  (2)  textiles,  (3)  woods, 
(4)  metals,  and  (5)  clays  and  other  allied  earth  materials. 
Fuels,  supplying  great  industries  in  themselves,  occupy  a 
middle  ground  between  industrial  materials  and  the  motive 
power  employed  in  the  industrial  arts.  Commerce  is  that 
industry  which  uses  the  products  of  all  other  industries  in 
making  things  available  for  human  consumption.  This  classi- 
fication has  the  advantage  of  fixing  attention  on  the  stuffs 
out  of  which  things  are  made  and  upon  which  human  ingenuity 
brings  to  bear  its  most  lavish  expenditure  of  industrial  effort. 
The  next  step  is  to  single  out  the  dominant  processes  in  the 
successive  stages  of  production,  manufacture,  and  distribution, 
and  their  interrelations,  peculiar  to  each  class  of  materials. 
The  facts  concerning  these  processes  constitute  the  subject- 
matter  of  instruction  in  the  industries.  The  technical  skill 
required  in  the  operation  of  any  industrial  process  is  the 
object  of  vocational  training. 

A  well  organized  course  of  study  in  the  industries  must  be 
the  joint  work  of  technical  and  pedagogical  experts.  The 
scientist  will  be  called  upon  to  contribute  his  share,  and  his 
contribution  will  be  no  inconsiderable  amount.  At  one  stage 
of  the  course  emphasis  may  be  placed  upon  the  processes  of 
production;  at  another  stage  the  stress  may  be  upon  manu- 
facture, distribution,  or  consumption.  Nature  study,  agri- 
culture, the  fisheries,  forestry,  and  mining  will  furnish  indis- 
pensable information.  Geography,  biology,  physics,  and 
chemistry  will  each  add  their  quota  of  knowledge.  Facilities 
for  transportation,  the  production  and  transmission  of  power, 
and  the  agencies  of  trade  and  commerce  will  have  a  bearing 
on  the  problem.  But  the  chief  consideration  in  the  course  of 
study  is  the  ordering  of  the  industrial  processes  by  which  raw 
materials  are  transformed  into  things  of  greater  value  for 
the  satisfaction  of  human  needs. 

The  simplest  industrial  processes  are  often  the  most  primi- 
tive. This  fact  suggests  the  desirability  of  sometimes  ap- 
proaching the  study  in  the  primary  classes  from  the  historical 
standpoint.  To  make  the  study  of  primitive  life,  however, 


12  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

the  dominant  purpose  of  instruction  leads  to  the  introduction 
of  much  superfluous  material  which  tends  to  crowd  the  cur- 
riculum and  overburden  the  child.  Wherever  the  approach 
can  be  made  advantageously  by  way  of  primitive  life  or  by 
plays  and  games  which  express  children's  emotions,  that 
method  may  be  employed.  The  impetus  gained  in  this  way 
should  be  directed  to  the  apprehension  of  the  systematic 
knowledge  contained  in  the  field  under  consideration.  When 
textile  processes,  for  example,  are  to  be  studied,  the  need  of 
clothing  may  be  emphasized  and  means  suggested  for  gratify- 
ing the  want.  Projects  for  carding,  spinning,  and  weaving 
may  be  carried  out  in  simple  ways  and  illustrated  by  reference 
to  actual  operations  in  bygone  times  or  by  the  practises  of 
contemporaneous  primitive  people.  But  to  rediscover  every 
step  in  the  original  development  of  these  arts  is  to  miss  the 
purpose  of  industrial  education;  it  may  be  good  industrial 
history,  but  it  is  not  good  industrial  training.  The  indus- 
trial aspects  of  the  study,  as  distinguished  from  the  historical, 
require  that  the  child  should  acquire  in  some  way  and  at  some 
time — presumably  in  many  ways  and  at  widely  separated  times 
— a  fairly  well-rounded  conception  of  textile  processes  and 
become  familiar  with  the  most  important  types  of  textile 
products.  It  is  not  enough  to  acquire  a  knowledge  of  the 
primitive  process  of  spinning,  even  spinning  on  a  wheel,  and 
then  to  pass  on  to  the  weaving  of  a  simple  rug.  Spinning  is 
an  important  industry  in  modern  life;  it  means  yarns  for  all 
manner  of  fabrics  made  from  a  great  variety  of  raw  materials ; 
it  means  thread  of  all  kinds;  it  means  cordage.  How  many 
of  our  school  children,  how  many  adults,  have  any  adequate 
conception  of  the  extent  of  these  industries  or  their  bearing 
on  everyday  life?  And  yet  the  processes  are  simple,  and,  by 
actual  demonstration,  supplemented  by  illustrations  cut  from 
current  magazines  or  by  visits  to  neighboring  factories,  the 
lesson  can  be  taught  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  the  learning 
a  delight  and  the  knowledge  a  permanent  possession.  On 
leaving  the  elementary  school,  every  child  should  know,  it 
seems  to  me,  the  characteristics  of  cotton,  wool,  silk,  and  linen, 


THE  SCHOOL  AN3  INDUSTRIAL  LIFE  13 

both  in  the  spun  and  woven  forms,  and  have  some  notion  of 
their  value  as  determined  by  the  processes  to  which  they  have 
been  subjected.  A  proper  combination  of  handwork,  the 
application  of  design  and  the  giving  of  information  should 
produce  the  desired  results  without  strain  and  with  constantly 
increasing  interest  in  the  study.  At  the  end  of  a  high  school 
course,  possibly  at  the  end  of  the  grammar  school,  a  girl 
should  be  able  not  only  to  make  many  articles  of  clothing, 
but  also  to  discriminate  in  the  choice  of  fabrics  by  reference 
to  what  she  has  learned  in  school  concerning  the  nature  of 
the  several  materials  and  the  processes  of  manufacture.  If 
she  doesn't  get  this  knowledge  in  school,  when  and  where  will 
she  ever  get  it?  And  isn't  it  something  which  she  has  a  right 
to  know?  How  much  time  will  it  take,  I  ask,  to  give  her  a 
vastly  better  equipment  in  this  field  than  ninety  per  cent  of 
adults  have  to-day?  It  is  less  a  problem  of  instruction  or 
school  administration,  than  it  is  a  point  of  view  and  selection 
of  materials  for  instruction.  Once  accept  my  proposition  that 
this  is  worth  doing,  and  the  time  can  easily  be  found,  and 
some  day  we  shall  have  teachers  prepared  to  do  the  work. 

Again,  let  me  illustrate  from  another  field — from  the  clay 
industries.  Children  like  to  make  mud  pies.  The  kinder- 
garten turns  this  aptitude  to  good  use  in  fashioning  things  by 
hand  molding.  Of  late,  primary  teachers  have  adopted  clay 
as  a  convenient  medium  for  expressing  art  forms.  The 
result  is  thirty  plaques,  thirty  ink  wells,  or  thirty  vases — all 
very  pretty,  decorated  and  glazed,  when  put  in  a  row  on 
exhibition  day.  So  far  I  have  no  criticism.  My  complaint 
is  that  they  stop  right  there.  The  chief  processes  in  the  clay 
industries  are  very  few;  hand  molding,  turning  on  the  potter's 
wheel,  pressing  into  set  forms,  and  building  up  in  permanent 
shape,  as  in  cement  and  concrete  construction.  Why  not, 
then,  pass  from  hand  molding,  which  can  be  approached 
through  primitive  types,  to  the  use  of  the  potter's  wheel  ?  A 
single  demonstration  of  this  machine,  with  the  use  of  illustra- 
tions which  may  be  had  in  abundance,  will  give  the  clue  to  the 
entire  round  of  the  pottery  industries.  A  few  samples,  vary- 


I4  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

ing  from  unglazed  earthenware  to  fine  china,  will  complete 
the  teaching  equipment.  Next  come  brick  and  terra-cotta. 
But  who  has  ever  heard  of  brick-making  in  school  ?  I  should 
like  to  hear  of  it  because  it  is  an  immense  industry,  the 
products  of  which  are  visible  on  every  hand — soft  brick,  hard 
brick,  fire  brick,  red  brick,  yellow  brick,  ornamental  brick, 
terra  cotta.  Why  should  not  our  children  know  more  about 
these  things  than  we  do?  I  venture  to  say  that  ten  hours 
of  instruction  judiciously  spread  over  two  or  three  years,  and 
properly  correlated  with  nature  study  and  geography,  will 
give  to  sixth  grade  children  a  better  appreciation  of  one  of 
the  staple  building  materials  than  ninety  out  of  every  hundred 
adults  have  to-day.  Is  it  worth  the  time?  If  so,  the  time 
can  be  found. 

I  might  illustrate  my  point  by  any  of  the  staple  foods,  by 
glass,  by  woods,  or  by  metals.  The  working  up  of  these 
materials,  the  getting  them  ready  for  use,  does  not  involve 
many  processes.  The  combination  of  processes  is  most  intri- 
cate and  the  variety  of  products  simply  indescribable,  but  with 
an  eye  single  to  typical  ways  by  which  raw  materials  are 
transformed  it  is  not  impossible  to  leave  with  twelve-year-old 
children  a  lasting  impression  of  the  modes  of  operation  in 
any  industry  and  the  nature  of  the  most  important  results. 

I  am  well  aware  that  this  plan  will  be  criticized  by  some 
as  being  retrogressive,  a  return  to  a  logical  control  of  childish 
activities,  and  by  others  as  abandonment  of  the  new  educa- 
tion through  motor  training.  It  may  mean  revolution,  but 
if  it  results  in  a  richer  and  more  unified  curriculum  one  critic 
is  answered,  and  if  the  curriculum  is  thereby  simplified  the 
other  critic  will  get  no  hearing  from  the  American  public. 
But  how  is  the  curriculum  strengthened?  First,  it  must  be 
conceded  that  the  content  of  industrial  education,  as  I  have 
defined  it,  has  some  value;  whatever  that  may  amount  to  is 
a  distinct  gain.  In  the  second  place,  the  plan  calls  for  richer 
courses  in  arithmetic,  nature  study,  and  geography.  The 
quantitative  measurements  of  arithmetic  will  find  concrete 
application  in  every  step  of  the  industrial  process  from  the 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRIAL  LIFE  15 

first  step  of  production  of  the  raw  materials  to  the  end  of  the 
series  when  goods  are  turned  to  practical  use.  How  much, 
how  many  times,  how  often,  in  what  proportion,  at  what  cost, 
are  questions  which  must  be  answered  by  the  child  at  every 
turn.  The  computations  called  for  in  the  manufacture,  trans- 
portation, and  final  distribution  of  any  commodity  are  in  daily 
use  in  trade  and  commerce,  and  should  be  the  staple  require- 
ment of  the  school.  Nothing  will  vitalize  the  study  of  arith- 
metic more  than  to  create  in  the  school  a  need  for  quantita- 
tive measurement  and  for  the  employment  of  business  methods 
in  business  affairs.  Such  a  situation  suggests  clearly  the  place 
and  scope  of  commercial  training  in  the  upper  grades  or  high 
school  for  those  who  are  in  training  for  commercial  vocations. 
The  natural  distribution  of  metals,  fuels,  clays,  and  other  earth 
materials,  the  climatic  and  physiographic  conditions  which 
determine  the  location,  amount,  character,  and  availability  of 
our  flora  and  fauna,  the  factors  which  control  transportation 
by  land  and  water — these  are  problems  in  geography  which 
become  concrete  and  vital  in  the  study  of  industries.  The 
correlations  are  so  obvious  that  only  a  stupid  teacher  can 
miss  them.  In  nature  study  we  shall  find  a  real  place  for  the 
elements  of  agriculture  and  forestry;  no  longer  aimless 
meandering  in  any  scientific  field,  but  definite  attention  to 
those  occupations  concerned  with  the  production  of  materials 
good  for  food,  clothing,  and  shelter,  the  conditions  calculated 
to  give  best  results,  and  the  resistance  which  men  meet  in 
doing  their  work.  The  growing  of  any  crop,  even  in  a  win- 
dow garden,  will  epitomize  the  farmer's  labors  in  tilling  the 
soil,  supplying  plant  food,  utilizing  light,  heat,  and  air,  over- 
coming disease  and  insect  pests,  and  reaping  his  harvest. 
Every  step  takes  on  new  meaning  when  the  learner  sees  its 
place  in  the  series  of  operations  culminating  in  the  commercial 
food  supply  of  his  own  community,  its  sanitary  regulation  and 
domestic  consumption.  The  elements  of  physiology  and 
hygiene,  and  of  physics  and  chemistry,  are  also  called  into 
requisition ;  they  are  all  indispensable  in  fixing  values  of  indus- 
trial products  and  determining  economy  in  technical  opera- 


16  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

tion.  What  makes  for  hygienic  living  is  as  well  worth  know- 
ing from  the  economic  standpoint  as  what  mechanical  appliance 
will  most  increase  the  output.  A  proper  study  of  the  indus- 
tries, therefore,  I  contend,  will  bring  about  a  unified  and 
closely  correlated  course  in  the  biological  and  physical  sciences 
by  way  of  supplying  the  information  wanted  by  the  child  in 
adjusting  himself  to  the  real  world. 

Perhaps  some  timorous  soul  will  interpret  my  outline  of 
the  pedagogical  relations  between  the  sciences  and  the  indus- 
tries as  a  denial  of  any  independence  to  arithmetic,  nature 
study,  and  geography.  Far  from  it.  The  scientific  subjects 
have  a  function  of  their  own  in  the  curriculum,  as  do  the 
humanities  and  the  industries.  The  use  of  language  and  the 
arts  of  reading  and  writing  in  studying  the  industries,  even 
the  generous  use  of  supplementary  readings  giving  industrial 
information,  does  not  preclude  the  study  of  literature  in  pro- 
gressively systematic  form.  The  course  of  study  in  every 
subject  may  have  two  aspects,  one  peculiar  to  itself  by  virtue 
of  which  we  recognize  it  as  a  distinct  subject,  the  other  rela- 
tive to  other  subjects  which  the  child  may  be  learning.  In 
arithmetic,  that  which  is  peculiarly  mathematical  looks  for- 
ward to  the  systematic  development  of  the  science  of  mathe- 
matics, and  it  is  possible  so  to  emphasize  this  aspect  as  to 
make  the  study  almost  exclusively  formal.  The  natural 
sciences  may  be  so  taught  as  to  have  no  direct  bearing  on  the 
child's  experience.  My  thought  is  that  any  subject  worthy 
of  a  place  in  the  school  curriculum  should  be  developed  along 
systematic  lines  characteristic  of  the  subject  itself  by  means 
which  function  in  the  child's  experience  with  other  subjects 
of  information.  This  is  only  another  way  of  saying  that 
whatever  is  learned  should  be  applied  in  practise.  Perhaps 
better  said,  it  is  the  harmonious  interaction  of  all  subjects 
in  the  curriculum  which  gives  zest  to  study,  solidarity  in  the 
knowledge  acquired,  and  efficiency  in  converting  knowledge 
into  power.  The  reason  for  this  is  that  the  learning  process 
is  a  unity;  the  child's  experience  in  gathering  information 
from  many  sources  is  unified,  and  it  is  his  own;  his  instincts, 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRIAL  LIFE  17 

impulses,  and  all  his  activities  belong  to  him  alone,  and  how- 
ever segregated  the  ultimate  ends  of  his  endeavor  may  be  in 
the  mind  of  his  teacher,  he  weaves  all  his  experiences  into 
the  fabric  of  his  own  life.  Whether  or  not  that  fabric  be 
technically  correct  depends  upon  the  systematic  ordering  of 
his  experiences;  its  serviceableness  for  any  particular  purpose 
depends  upon  the  materials  which  have  entered  into  it. 

One  other  important  question  awaits  an  answer.  Will  the 
plan  I  have  proposed  tend  to  simplify  the  curriculum?  My 
answer  is  that  at  least  four  subjects  will  be  combined  into 
one,  and  in  some  elementary  schools  one  teacher  will  take  the 
place  of  four.  Manual  training,  fine  arts,  domestic  art,  and 
domestic  science  will  drop  out  below  the  seventh  grade,  and 
in  their  place  we  shall  have  the  one  subject  of  industrial  arts, 
the  elements  of  industries.  The  term  "  manual  training,"  if 
used  at  all,  will  cover  the  forms  of  motor  expression  employed 
in  teaching  reading,  writing,  and  drawing,  as  well  as  the 
manual  exercises  used  in  agriculture  or  weaving  or  pottery 
making  or  carpentry.  There  will  be  no  hours  set  apart  in 
the  school  program  for  work  exclusively  with  the  hands,  and 
teachers  will  not  be  expected  to  provide  manual  occupations 
for  every  minute  of  the  time  assigned  to  any  subject.  When 
manual  work  is  needed  it  will  be  demanded  as  insistently  and 
employed  as  successfully  in  the  humanities  and  the  sciences 
as  in  the  industries.  In  the  lower  school,  manual  exercises 
will  be  used  as  a  means  of  self-expression,  a  method  of  teach- 
ing rather  than  a  subject  of  instruction  or  a  way  of  acquiring 
technical  skill.  That  is,  cooking  in  the  lower  school  is  to 
enable  the  child  to  know  what  happens  when  heat  is  applied 
to  foods,  and  in  what  respects  foods  thereby  are  made  more 
serviceable;  cooking  as  an  art  in  which  a  girl  should  excel 
belongs  to  a  later  period  when  she  is  fitting  herself  for  house- 
keeping. Technical  skill  is  a  distinct  aim  in  vocational  train- 
ing, but  in  the  earlier  years  of  school  the  purpose  is  general 
rather  than  specific,  cultural  rather  than  vocational. 

In  all  industrial  processes,  wherever  man  transforms 
materials  into  things  of  greater  value,  he  employs  a  technic 


18  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

peculiar  to  the  situation,  and  gives  to  the  product  a  touch 
which  pleases  his  aesthetic  sense.  Earthen  bowls  might  be 
made,  I  suppose,  without  appreciable  artistic  merit,  but  the 
fact  is,  that  the  crudest  pottery  shows  an  effort  to  attain  some 
ideal  standard.  This  striving  for  artistic  effect  is  as  instinc- 
tive in  childhood  as  in  primitive  man,  and  no  worker  ever 
loses  it  until  he  loses  all  pride  in  his  handiwork.  It  is  the 
source  of  every  fine  art.  It  is  self-expression,  which  is  at 
its  best  when  bodied  forth  in  doing  things  worth  doing  well. 
The  teacher  of  art,  therefore,  finds  his  best  opportunity  in 
that  field  which  offers  greatest  inducement  to  constructive 
design.  The  art  training  which  belongs  in  the  elementary 
school  is  that  training  which  makes  for  a  better  appreciation 
of  aesthetic  standards  and  which  finds  expression  in  making 
things  more  pleasing  than  they  otherwise  would  be.  It  adds 
no  burden  to  the  curriculum;  on  the  contrary,  it  enlivens  it 
and  makes  its  tasks  more  pleasurable  because  more  gratifying 
to  personal  wants. 

A  systematic  course  in  the  industries  will  have  the  addi- 
tional advantage  of  making  it  easier  to  teach  everything  else 
in  the  curriculum.  Not  only  will  the  study  of  industrial 
processes  give  rise  to  concrete  problems  in  mathematics  and 
the  natural  sciences,  but  the  practical  character  of  such  prob- 
lems will  incite  children  to  find  the  surest  and  most  business- 
like way  of  solving  them.  Time  will  be  saved  for  drill  in 
every  other  line.  With  fewer  subjects  and  more  practical 
problems,  I  should  confidently  expect  better  results  in  the 
three  Rs  and  a  more  thorough  discipline  resulting  from  work  in 
every  subject.  There  would  be  no  attempt  to  cover  the  whole 
field  of  human  effort;  the  standard  set  in  the  study  of  indus- 
tries whereby  only  the  essential  processes  should  be  included 
in  the  course  of  study  would  react  upon  the  courses  of  study 
in  the  humanities  and  the  sciences.  Let  it  be  agreed  that 
only  fundamentals  have  a  place  in  the  elementary  curriculum, 
and  it  will  be  comparatively  easy  to  insist  upon  thorough  work. 
Under  such  conditions  there  can  be  no  excuse  for  not  getting 
it.  Those  who  believe,  as  I  do,  in  the  educational  value  of 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRIAL  LIFE  19 

work  well  done,  will  join  hands  right  here  with  those  who 
advocate  a  curriculum  which  imposes  tasks  worth  doing  well. 
My  conclusion  is  that  industrial  education  is  essential  to 
the  social  and  political  well-being  of  a  democracy.  It  is  the 
privilege  of  all,  rather  than  the  duty  of  a  few,  to  be  informed 
on  matters  affecting  the  social  welfare  of  the  body  politic.  A 
knowledge  of  how  men  get  a  living,  the  nature  of  their  work, 
and  the  value  of  it,  is  a  prerequisite  to  intelligent  apprecia- 
tion of  the  dignity  of  labor.  A  sympathetic  understanding  of 
the  conditions  underlying  industrial  competition  will  make 
for  civil  order  and  social  stability.  Training  for  citizenship 
may  not  safely  disregard  the  dominant  interests  of  the  great 
majority  of  citizens.  The  public  school  must  teach  that  which 
all  should  know.  If  only  six  years  can  be  had  for  this  work, 
the  work  must  be  done  in  six  years.  There  is  no  alternative. 
It  must  be  done  in  such  a  way,  too,  that  children  will  grasp 
its  significance  and  carry  its  impressions  throughout  their  lives. 
It  must  establish  such  habits  of  thought  and  conduct  that  all 
subsequent  work  will  be  aided  by  the  discipline.  This  is  the 
ideal  of  the  elementary  school.  Joined  with  the  humanities 
and  the  sciences,  a  study  of  the  industries  rounds  out  the 
education  of  the  citizen  and  equips  him  to  begin  his  voca- 
tional training.  On  the  threshold  of  active  life  it  puts  him 
on  a  par  with  his  fellows.  It  assures  him  that  kind  of  equality 
which  is  the  opportunity  of  every  American. 


FUNDAMENTAL 
VALUES  IN  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

FREDERICK  G.  BONSER 


FUNDAMENTAL  VALUES  IN  INDUSTRIAL 
EDUCATION* 


\Yhen  the  American  people  become  fully  conscious  of  an 
idea  for  reform,  the  idea  expresses  itself  in  practical  applica- 
tion with  astonishing  and  often  wasteful  rapidity.  There  is 
occasionally  a  suggestion  that  the  present-day  conduct  of 
industrial  education  may  be  an  illustration  of  this  tendency. 

Recent  conditions  have  brought  about  a  consciousness  of 
need  for  more  intelligence  and  training  among  the  workers 
in  industrial  vocations  that  is  almost  phenomenal  in  its  breadth 
and  intensity.  This  need  has  expressed  itself  in  a  demand 
for  a  kind  of  school  work  which  would  produce  immediate 
returns  in  terms  of  increased  skill  and  technical  efficiency 
in  industrial  vocations.  Numerous  and  varied  interests  have 
combined  to  bring  about  a  response  to  this  demand  in  the 
form  of  many  industrial  schools  whose  chief  end  is  frankly 
vocational.  Much,  too,  has  been  said  and  written  about  these 
schools  in  the  immediate  past,  but  very  little,  relatively,  has 
been  said,  written,  or  accomplished  toward  realizing  a  solu- 
tion for  this  industrial  education  problem  through  the  gen- 
eral or  regular  school  system.  Naturally  conservative,  the 
public  school  has  responded  but  slowly  to  this  new  demand 
which  has  come  with  such  a  rush.  Public  elementary  and 
secondary  schools  have  been  developed  largely  on  the  theory 
that  they  were  supplementary  to  vocations.  Their  end  point 
has  been  cultural  or  liberal.  A  segregation  of  industrial  edu- 
cation and  training  has  thus  come  about  in  many  instances 
whereby  an  almost  complete  separation  of  liberal  education 

*  Reprint  of  TECHNICAL  EDUCATION  BULLETIN,  No.  10,  published  by 
Teachers  College,  Columbia  University. 

23 


24  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

and  industrial  education  has  resulted.  Whether  this  segre- 
gation is  not  dangerous,  and  also  unnecessary  and  therefore 
wasteful,  we  shall  try  to  indicate  after  more  fully  considering 
the  problem  in  its  more  fundamental  aspects. 

Although  slow  in  responding  by  adequate  courses  of  study 
and  programs  of  work,  the  general  school  system  has  not  been 
insensible  to  the  demands  made  upon  it.  Two  entirely  dif- 
ferent elements  have  contributed  to  focus  attention  and  effort 
upon  the  problem  of  readjustment  looking  to  the  appropriate 
recognition  of  the  industrial  arts.  The  one  already  suggested 
is  the  recent  demand  for  a  higher  degree  of  skill  and  efficiency 
in  the  industrial  worker.  The  other  embraces  a  number  of 
historic  influences  which  have  been  developing  with  increasing 
clearness  in  the  field  of  pedagogy  since  the  Renaissance.  In 
the  realism  of  Bacon,  Comenius  and  Pestalozzi ;  the  naturalism 
of  Rousseau;  the  doctrines  of  apperception  and  many-sided 
interest  of  Herbart;  the  principles  of  development  by  partici- 
pation of  Froebel;  and  the  general  pragmatism  evolved  in 
recent  years  through  the  scientific  and  sociological  movements 
in  education — in  all  of  these  we  see  a  progressively  broad- 
ening tendency  to  bring  the  work  of  the  school  into  a  more 
vital  relationship  with  the  immediate  world  of  activities  and 
interests  in  which  the  child  lives.  Xnture  study,  agriculture, 
drawing,  hand  work,  manual  training  -tic  art,  domestic 

science,  housewifery,  household  arts,  and  manual  arts  are  all 
terms  for  kinds  of  work  which  have  helped  to  overcome  the 
isolation  between  the  school  and  life.  But  viewed  from  the 
standpoints  of  both  the  vocations  and  pedagogy,  results  have 
been  somewhat  disappointing.  Degrees  of  skill  and  efficiency 
commensurate  with  vocational  standards  have  not  been  at- 
tained; and  thought  content  has  not  been  sufficiently  rich 
to  assure  that  educational  value  demanded  of  a  school  study. 
The  movement  to  organize,  enrich  and  more  scrupulously  to 
evaluate  on  the  basis  of  educational  worths  the  field  of  subject 
matter  in  the  industrial  arts  is  the  movement  characterizing 
the  attitude  of  the  school  as  an  institution  to-day. 

To  meet  these  common  needs — those  of  the  vocations  and 


FUNDAMENTAL  VALUES  IN  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION  25 

those  of  the  child — in  the  most  satisfactory  way  possible  means 
practically  a  complete  revision  in  our  evaluation  and  selection 
of  subject  matter  for  the  whole  school  curriculum.  It  means 
working  over  the  materials  and  methods  of  education  and 
training  on  the  basis  of  the  most  vital  life  needs  of  the  present 
time.  Such  perspective  must  be  maintained  that  the  part  will 
not  be  exalted  above  the  whole.  Justification  for  every  topic 
considered  will  have  to  be  in  relationship  to  some  appreciable 
value  and  on  the  basis  of  some  fundamental  principle. 

Among  the  distinctions  which  it  will  be  necessary  to  keep  x 
constantly  in  mind  is  that  of  educational  value  as  distinguished  \ 
from  merely  training  value.  Training  primarily  develops  skill 
in  a  form  of  activity;  educational  value  means  valuean  con- 
trolling conduct.  Anything  which  helps  to  shape  one's  attitude 
of  mind,  one's  habits  of  thinking,  one's  standards  of  appre- 
ciating or  one's  bases  of  choice  has  educational  value  in  a 
degree  measured  by  its  influence  for  good  in  one  or  more 
of  these  directions.  Now  merely  learning  a  number  of  neuro- 
muscular  co-ordinations  such  as  those  involved  in  sewing, 
cooking,  woodwork,  clay  work,  or  any  other  form  of  "  manual 
training  "  can  not  be  shown  to  have  contributed  much  to  any 
one  of  these  larger  educational  values.  After  getting  clear 
notions  of  what  is  to  be  done,  the  lower  centres  of  the  brain, 
and  the  spinal  cord  are  the  only  parts  of  the  nervous  system 
much  employed  in  these  activities.  Here  is  the  vital  weakness 
in  "  manual  training  "  as  an  educational  subject  so  long  as 
it  retains  its  etymological  significance  in  the  character  of  its 
work.  Mere  motor  training  does  not  require  much  use  of 
the  frontal  lobes  of  the  brain.  Repetitions  of  motor  activities 
for  the  sake  of  greater  skill  soon  reduce  themselves  to  the 
same  type  and  level  of  activity  as  practice  in  penmanship  and 
have  no  more  educational  value.  That  motor  activities  have 
educational  value  is  by  no  means  to  be  ignored;  but  because 
of  the  danger  of  overestimating  them  and  exploiting  them  I 
at  the  expense  of  much  greater  values,  it  is  the  more  necessary  ^\ 
clearly  to  distinguish  our  measures  of  worth. 

In  the  foregoing  distinctions,  it  is  believed  that  there  lies 


26  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

the  basis  for  distinguishing  between  the  appropriate  work  of 
the  general  school  system,  elementary  and  secondary,  and  the 
specialized  school  for  specific  technical  training.  It  is  offered 
that  the  general  school  system  should  provide  as  a  part  of  its 
legitimate  work  thos'c  phases  of  the  industrial  arts  which  arc 
primarily  educational;  and  that  whenever  specialized  training 
whose  chief  end  point  is  a  high  degree  of  skill,  and  technical 
efficiency  becomes  the  primary  aim,  the  work  of  the  segregated 
trade  or  vocational  school  or  course  should  begin.  This  atti- 
tude for  both  the  elementary  and  the  secondary  schools  in  the 
general  system  would  limit  work  in  manipulation  of  materials 
and  processes  of  construction  actually  participated  in  to  those 
whose  purpose  is  the  development  of  clear  ideas  and  apprecia- 
tive insights.  On  sufficient  investigation  and  development,  it 
may  appear  that  if  time  is  given  to  the  hand  work  of  all  kinds 
adequate  for  the  development  of  industrial  intelligence,  indus- 
trial insight  and  industrial  appreciation,  all  of  the  demands 
made  from  the  standpoint  of  the  development  of  muscular 
control  and  co-ordination,  constructive  instincts,  and  manipu- 
lative skills  will  be  accomplished,  save  as  these  activities  need 
that  refinement  and  speed  which  can  be  acquired  <>nly  through 
the  repeated  practice  of  the  trade  or  the  trade  school. 

It  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  discussion  to  enter  at  all  into 
the  problem  of  the  specialized  work  of  the  trade  school  \vhose 
purpose  is  frankly  the  development  of  skills  in  specific  voca- 
tional activities,  but  rather  to  confine  itself  to  those  studies 
in  the  industrial  arts  and  their  social  relationships  which  are 
appropriate  to  the  public,  democratic  elementary  and  secondary 
schools.  In  our  zeal  to  give  adequate  place  to  the  industrial 
arts,  we  shall  try  to  avoid  giving  an  emphasis  to  their  tech- 
nical content  which  would  make  them  overshadow  that  broader 
education  to  which  they  contribute. 

That  we  may  keep  our  perspective  in  the  problem,  we  shall 
rely  upon  a  principle  which  we  believe  to  be  supported  alike 
by  psychology,  sociology  and  ethics.  Simply  stated,  this  prin- 
ciple holds  that  there  are  more  qualities,  needs,  and  forms  of 
activity  in  which  individuals  arc  alike  than  in  which  they  are 


FUNDAMENTAL  VALUES  IN  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION   27 

different.  Those  fundamentals  of  greatest  life  worth  are  com- 
mon to  all.  They  are  scarcely  dependent  upon  or  involved 
in  vocations  at  all,  excepting  as  vocations  are  means  to  ends. 
Said  Theodore  Roosevelt  recently,  "  If  a  man  is  himself  the 
right  kind  of  man,  he  will  speedily  find  among  the  anthracite 
miners  as  among  the  farmers  in  the  East,  or  the  planters  in 
the  South,  or  the  ranchmen  in  the  West,  or  mechanics  or 
lawyers  or  bankers,  that  the  vital  differences  and  vital  affinities 
have  to  do  with  the  quality  of  the  man  and  not  with  the  acci- 
dents of  his  position  or  labor  save  as  these  tend  to  shape  the 
above  mentioned  qualities."  Those  necessary  modifications 
of  work  based  upon  individual  differences  in  aptitudes  and 
capacities  which  differentiate  people  into  appropriate  voca- 
tional groups  only  intensify  the  need  for  the  efficient  develop- 
ment of  those  qualities  common  to  all,  for  it  is  in  just  these 
elements  that  differences  are  hostile  ^nd  ^hateful  to  true 
democracy. 

From  the  standpoint  here  proposed,  in^iitAu  studies  would 
be  the  same,  in  the  elementary  school,  for  all  children,  regard-  \/ 
less  of  sex  or  'future  vocation — the  same  for  prospective  doc- 
tors or  lawyers  as  for  prospective  mechanics  or  farmers.  The 
end  point  is  that  common  knowledge,  experience,  appreciation, 
and  sympathy  which  are  necessary  to  effective  manhood  and 
womanhood  in  any  life  activity.  By  elementary  education 
we  mean  just  this  period  of  growth  in  which  the  content  of 
the  curriculum  is  undifferentiated  on  the  basis  of  either  social 
or  individual  specialization,  a  period  in  which  interests  are 
common  and  general  for  all.  Growth  is  toward  efficient  func- 
tioning in  any  field  of  human  activity.  Values  are  all  broadly 
humanistic. 

As  an  elementary  school  subject,  industrial  arts  must  stand 
the  same  test,  be  measured  by  the  same  standards,  as  any  other 
elementary  school  subject.  Broadly,  this  test  is,  first,  that  it 
shall  consist  of  a  body  of  thought  and  experience  sufficiently 
important  to  human  well  being  to  justify  acquainting  all  chil- 
dren with  its  content.  In  the  second  place,  this  subject  matter 
must  be  susceptible  of  such  gradation  and  treatment  that  it 


28  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

will  lend  itself  to  the  interests  and  capacities  of  school  children 
and  to  the  practical  possibilities  of  school  instruction.  As  a 
secondary  school  subject,  industrial  arts  must  meet  just  as 
fully  the  test  of  rich  thought  content  and  humanistic  values 
as  any  other  appropriate  secondary  school  subject.  Sec- 
ondary education  differs  from  elementary  education  chiefly 
in  requiring  certain  forms  of  differentiation  in  response  to 
differences  developing  in  individual  interests,  capacities,  and 
inclinations  in  groups  of  social  activities.  Interests  are  still 
broadly  relational  to  general  social  life,  yet  are  developing 
in  the  direction  of  special  forms  of  activity.  Values  are  still 
humanistic  but  in  a  more  restricted  field.  Highly  developed 
technical  skill  is  not  the  chief  end  point  of  the  handwork. 
Increased  knowledge  of  scientific  principles  and  processes  in 
industrial  fields,  maturing  judgment  in  interpreting  industrial 
problems  and  relationships,  and  growing  standards  of  indus- 
trial phases  of  social  life  are  the  elements  without  which  a 
secondary  study  of  the  industrial  arts  is  almost  devoid  of 
educational  values. 

Based  upon  this  preliminary  survey.  1  shall  now  offer  three 
definite  propositions  and  develop  each  in  some  detail : 

First,  that  the  industrial  arts,  rightly  interpreted,  contain 
a  body  of  thought  and  experience  sufficiently  vital  to  human 
well  being  to  give  the  subject  a  place  in  the  elementary  and 
secondary  school  curriculum  on  a  basis  of  thorough  respecta- 
bility and  validity. 

Second,  that  properly  organized,  the  industrial  arts  will 
involve  a  revitalizing  and  motivating  of  much  of  the  other 
subject  matter  of  the  school  curriculum,  providing  valid  tests 
for  selection  and  elimination  on  the  basis  of  really,  human 
values. 

Third,  that  the  social  and  liberal  elements  in  the  study  of 
the  industrial  arts  are  more  significant  than  are  the  elements 
involved  in  the  mere  manipulation  of  materials.. 

That  the  industries  are  of  vital  importance  is  evident  when 
we  recall  that  matters  of  food,  clothing,  shelter,  transporta- 
tion, and  numerous  other  industrial  items  are  topics  of  almost 


FUNDAMENTAL  VALUES  IN  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION  29 

hourly  consideration.  In  1900,  of  all  of  the  people  in  the 
United  States  engaged  in  gainful  occupations,  76.3  per  cent 
were  employed  in  productive  industry  of  some  kind.  It  is 
just  because  this  industrial  experience  is  so  vital  to  the  race 
as  a  whole,  both  now  and  in  the  past,  that  it  is  valid  as  experi- 
ence for  every  child  that  he  may  understand  and  appreciate 
its  significance. 

To  live  to-day  with  an  intelligent  understanding  and  appre- 
ciation of  the  industrial  world  requires  profoundly  more 
knowledge  and  experience  than  were  required  two  generations 
ago.  Conditions  of  to-day  make  the  school  the  only  institu- 
tion through  which  this  body  of  experience  can  be  systemat- 
ically acquired.  Looking  into  the  available  field  it  is  very 
easy  to  see  the  extent  of  its  content.  By  the  Census  Bureau 
of  the  United  States,  there  were  in  this  country,  in  1900,  354 
separate  industries  of  a  purely  manufacturing  type  with  a 
host  of  supplementary  industrial  and  commercial  occupations 
concerned  with  the  production,  transformation,  and  distribu- 
tion of  raw  materials  and  finished  products.  Measured  by 
their  relationship  to  general  human  well-being  many  of  these 
are  insignificant.  But  by  a  rather  natural  grouping  on  the 
basis  of  materials  used,  those  of  greatest  importance  may 
readily  be  resolved  into  five  or  six  general  classes.  The  five 
groups  suggested  by  Dean  James  E.  Russell  of  Teachers  Col- 
lege in  the  preceding  article,  include  those  industries  relating 
respectively  to  food  products,  textiles,  wood  products,  iron 
and  other  metals,  and  clay  and  allied  earth  products.  Our 
work  so  far  with  foods  has  been  called  domestic  science;  with 
textiles,  domestic  arts;  and  with  wood,  metals,  and  clay, 
manual  training.  The  designing  and  decorating  of  projects 
of  whatever  kind  have  been  included  by  drawing.  But  every 
one  of  these  subjects  has  been  largely  formal  and  the  work 
accomplished  with  little  relationship  to  the  industries  repre- 
sented. The  side  of  execution  has  been  developed  to  the 
almost  total  neglect  of  thought  content  or  humanistic  value. 

Now  it  is  offered  that  by  taking  proper  units  of  work  from 
each  of  these  five  fields,  a  subject  of  study  can  be  developed 


30  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

largely  taking  the  place  of  the  four  subjects,  drawing,  manual 
training,  domestic  science,  and  domestic  art,  which  will  include 
the  really  most  vital  and  fundamental  elements  in  all  of  these. 
It  is  offered  that  this  subject  will  have  a  body  of  thought  that 
will  command  respect,  and  that  in  developing  a  knowledge 
and  intelligent  understanding  of  social  and  economic  rela- 
tionships essential  to  every  child,  and  an  appreciation  for  and 
sympathy  with  the  work  of  industrial  vocations,  it  will  be 
as  valuable  as  any  other  subject  in  the  elementary  school. 
In  developing  such  a  course,  definite  units  typical  of  important 
industries  must  be  selected.  These  will  have  to  be  graded 
in  such  sequence  that  simple  phases  are  developed  in  the  lower 
grades,  more  complex  phases  as  the  pupil  proceeds  into  higher 
grades.  The  units  will  have  to  be  offered  in  such  order  that 
there  will  be  provided  the  proper  opportunities  and  motives 
for  the  development  of  power  and  some  degree  of  efficiency 
in  the  manipulation  of  materials.  The  projects  in  wood,  for 
example,  will  have  to  be  so  selected  as  to  be  within  the  range 
of  possible  construction  for  the  respective  grades,  and  will 
have  to  be  in  such  sequence  as  to  develop  a  growing  knowledge 
of  the  use  of  tools,  and  a  growing  complexity  in  the  principles 
and  processes  of  construction.  But  this  will  be  just  as  easily 
accomplished  if  the  dominant  motive  is  the  thought  side  of 
the  piece  of  work  as  a  type  study  in  some  large  industry  as 
if  the  chief  end  point  were  skillful  manipulation.  The  making 
of  a  cabinet  in  wood,  of  a  garment  in  textiles,  of  a  cold  chisel 
in  iron,  of  bread,  or  cheese,  or  sugar  among  foods,  are  all 
so  rich  in  thought  material  that  every  one  of  them  may  be 
taught  without  any  of  that  formal  grind  that  so  often  robs 
all  manual  school  work  of  any  real  developmental  value.  The 
great  point  of  emphasis  for  all  of  these  studies  in  the  ele- 
mentary school  is  not  skill  in  manipulation — is  not  the  art  side 
primarily  in  any  instance.  The  manipulation  of  materials — 
work  with  the  hands  in  wood,  iron,  textiles,  foods,  or  clays — 
is  here  for  the  purpose  of  helping  the  mind  to  grasp  the 
meaning  of  these  industrial  activities, — to  utilize  expressive 
capacity  along  with  acquisition.  It  is  to  clarify  ideas  and 


FUNDAMENTAL  VALUES  IN  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION  31 

appreciate  meanings,  feelings,  difficulties,  and  excellencies,  and 
not  to  make  mechanics  or  cooks,  or  dressmakers,  or  special 
workers  in  any  other  field.  Through  the  work  of  the  school 
the  child  must  get  this  fundamental  knowledge  and  experi- 
ence once  furnished  by  his  everyday  life. 

I  shall  now  try  to  suggest  a  number  of  units  of  industrial 
work  which  will  illustrate  possibilities.  Recalling  the  sug- 
gested grouping  into  five  fields,  namely,  foods,  textiles,  woods, 
metals,  and  clays  and  allied  earth  products,  we  shall  see  that 
each  furnishes  an  extensive  quota  of  subjects.  Divisions  of 
foods  which  readily  suggest  themselves  are  cereals,  fruits, 
vegetables,  milk  products,  meats,  eggs,  and  fish.  Under 
cereals  we  have  the  commercial  processes  of  milling,  starch 
making,  sugar  and  oil  manufacture,  canning,  and  cooking. 
Several  of  the  most  fundamental  processes  involved  are  pos- 
sible of  demonstration  by  the  children  in  the  schools.  The 
grinding  of  corn  and  wheat  may  be  accomplished  in  the  vari- 
ous ways  in  which  this  has  developed  historically;  a  mill  may 
be  visited  where  the  work  is  done  in  a  small  but  modern  way; 
the  various  products  from  milling — the  kinds  of  flour  and 
meal  made — may  be  shown  by  samples  and  their  relative  con- 
stituents and  values  learned  as  well  as  the  methods  of  their 
respective  production ;  finally  through  books,  the  large  descrip- 
tive phases  of  the  milling  industry  may  be  taken  up.  The  work 
would  not  all  come  in  one  grade.  Simple  cracking  of  grains 
by  stones  and  grinding  by  the  mortar  and  pestle  may  be  taken 
up  in  a  very  early  grade;  visits  to  mills  may  come  later,  in 
the  fourth  or  fifth  grade;  and  the  larger  phases  of  the  industry 
considered  perhaps  later  in  a  more  systematic  study  of  indus- 
trial geography.  Starch  and  sugar  making  may  also  be 
demonstrated  as  large  industries.  Canning  still  has  a  small 
place  as  a  domestic  industry  and  may  serve  as  a  point  of 
departure  for  the  larger  industry.  For  fruits  and  vegetables, 
studies  are  possible  in  canning,  evaporating,  preserving,  pick- 
ling, sugar  making — from  beets  and  grapes — and  cooking. 
Under  milk  products  are  the  industries  of  butter  and  cheese 
making,  and  of  condensed  milk  manufacture.  In  the  study 


32  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

of  meats,  eggs,  and  fish,  while  little  can  be  done  comparable 
with  the  handling  of  these  products  by  large  packing  houses, 
simple  processes  of  drying,  canning,  preserving,  pickling,  and 
cooking  can  be  taken  up,  and  the  simpler  by-products,  as  soap 
making  and  fertilizers,  can  be  studied  first  hand.  In  none  of 
these,  not  even  the  cooking,  is  it  to  be  assumed  that  children 
in  the  grades,  would  develop  much  skill  on  the  art  side — no 
more  than  it  is  to  be  assumed  that  their  study  of  poetry,  pic- 
tures, or  music  in  the  grades  will  make  poets,  artists  or 
musicians  of  them.  But  through  the  participation  in  the 
typical  processes  of  these  industries  in  so  far  as  this  is  pos- 
sible, as  points  of  departure  for  the  study  of  the  larger  phases 
of  the  industries  from  pictures,  museum  materials,  and  books, 
the  children  will  have  become  intelligent  and  appreciative  in 
many  elements  wherein  they  are  now  ignorant  and  unsym- 
pathetic. 

In  textiles,  the  four  great  staples,  wool,  cotton,  linen,  and 
silk,  may  be  studied  in  all  of  the  fundamental  processes  of 
their  manufacture.  For  wool,  it  is  possible  in  lower  grades 
to  begin  with  a  sheep  pelt  and  have  the  children  themselves 
accomplish  the  washing,  combing,  carding,  spinning,  dyeing, 
weaving,  fulling,  shearing,  shrinking  and  pressing  of  the 
wool.  Later  studies  may  be  given  to  the  commercial  methods 
of  manufacture,  to  the  differences  between  worsteds  and  other 
wools,  to  the  content  of  felt,  shoddy,  cashmere,  mohair,  alpaca, 
and  camel's  hair.  In  the  study  of  cotton,  the  ginning,  clean- 
ing, carding,  and  other  processes  may  be  reproduced  by  the 
children.  Mercerization  and  other  commercial  processes  may 
come  in  upper  grades.  The  various  combinations  of  cotton 
and  wool,  testing,  dyeing,  cleaning,  washing,  and  numerous 
other  topics,  as  well  as  descriptive  studies  of  the  great  milling 
centres  and  processes,  of  wages,  of  the  social  conditions  of 
labor,  of  the  extent  and  meaning  of  these  industries,  of  allied 
industries  as  custom  clothing  manufacture,  sweat  shops,  and 
so  on.  may  all  be  taken  up  in  their  proper  relationships  in 
upper  grades.  Flax  may  be  grown  in  the  school  garden  and 
rippled,  retted,  broken,  scutched,  heckled,  spun,  dyed,  woven, 


FUNDAMENTAL  VALUES  IN  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION   33 

and  bleached.  The  children  of  several  schools  have  done  most 
of  this,  making  their  own  apparatus.  Allied  textile  materials 
may  be  studied  in  this  connection — jute,  hemp,  manila,  sisal, 
China  grass,  and  other  important  tropical  fibres.  Silk  may 
be  grown,  spun,  woven,  and  dyed  if  desired,  as  the  eggs  of 
the  silk-worm  may  now  be  had  for  the  asking.  The  textile 
field  with  its  manifold  phases  and  its  profound  importance 
offers  a  wealth  of  material.  An  art  education  of  the  highest 
order  lies  latent  in  its  study.  Studies  in  color  harmony,  design 
and  decoration  in  textiles  themselves,  in  dress,  laces,  rugs, 
carpets,  curtains,  and  other  furnishings  of  many  kinds  are 
of  everyday  importance  and  the  raw  material  for  such  studies 
lies  all  about  us.  For  woods,  we  may  study  milling,  rough 
and  finished,  carpentering,  cabinet  making,  box  making,  and 
cooperage  first  hand.  Not  to  make  carpenters  or  coopers  or  \ 
cabinet  makers,  but  to  learn  the  kinds  and  qualities  of  woods  \ 
used  and  the  reasons,  the  processes  of  handling  and  the  rea- 
sons, the  tools  used  and  the  reasons,  the  stains,  varnishes,  and 
paints  used  and  the  reasons,  the  appropriateness  of  selections 
of  wood  and  design  to  the  purposes,  the  relation  of  wood- 
working industries  to  other  industries  and  to  our  whole  social 
life — these  are  the  aims.  In  metal  work  we  can  easily  demon- 
strate simple  processes  of  smelting,  forging,  molding  and 
casting,  steel  making,  and  milling  in  iron;  we  can  show  plat- 
ing, pressing,  riveting,  and  soldering  in  tin;  rolling  and  cast- 
ing in  zinc  and  lead;  and  plating,  engraving,  and  hammering 
in  copper,  illustrative  of  the  same  processes  in  nickel,  silver, 
and  gold.  A  simple  demonstration  is  here  possible  of  many 
processes  with  little  more  than  a  test  tube  or  crucible,  a  gas 
or  alcohol  lamp,  and  the  raw  materials.  The  smaller  forms 
of  these  industries  are  further  illustrated  in  blacksmith  shops, 
foundries,  tin-shops,  and  jeweler's  shops.  This  field  of  metal 
work  is  bristling  with  opportunities  for  fine  art  education  not 
yet  begun  to  be  appreciated.  It  is  not  that  these  studies  are 
impossible  that  has  kept  them  out  of  the  schools  but  that  we 
have  not  thought  them  worth  while.  For  clay  and  allied  earth 
products,  we  have  possible  studies  in  the  processes  of  pottery 


34  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

making,  the  making  of  brick  and  tile,  stone  cutting,  lime  and 
cement  construction,  and  perhaps  porcelain  and  glass.  Besides 
these  five  larger  fields,  foods,  textiles,  woods,  metals,  and  clay 
and  allied  earth  products,  there  are  a  number  of  miscellaneous 
industries — basketry,  paper  making,  printing  and  illustrating, 
book-binding,  upholstering,  leather  work,  making  of  toys  and 
games,  making  electrical  apparatus,  and  a  few  others  of  large 
import  which  may  be  utilized. 

That  drawing  is  adequately  provided  for  is  clearly  evident 
when  we  remember  that,  rightly  taught,  every  project  in 
wood,  metals,  textiles,  or  clay  would  have  to  be  designed  and 
that  many  projects  in  paper,  wood,  textiles,  and  clay  would 
call  for  decoration.  Appropriate  design  and  decoration — the 
largest  motives  in  all  phases  of  drawing — would  call  into 
usage  practically  every  form  of  line,  light  and  shade,  and  color 
— together  with  underlying  principles  and  great  variety  of 
application,  suitable  to  elementary  school  children.  This 
work,  together  with  the  illustrative  drawing  in  other  subjects, 
and  the  development  and  drill  work  necessary  for  these  w<  mid 
furnish  adequate  opportunity  for  the  development  of  both 
such  intelligence  and  power  as  are  possible  in  the  grades.  The 
work  in  all  phases  of  industrial  construction  would  furnish 
material  for  cultivation  of  appreciation.  Masterpieces  would 
be  necessary  in  all  lines  as  a  part  of  the  plan  of  study — good 
and  artistic  pieces  of  wood  work,  of  metal  work,  of  textiles, 
of  china  and  other  pottery,  would  all  be  helpful  and  stimulating 
as  well  as  would  the  products  of  fine  art  in  pictures,  statuary, 
and  architecture  in  the  study  of  decorative  design.  Studies 
of  color  harmony  in  clothing,  in  household  equipment — car- 
pets, curtains,  and  wall-papers,  in  furniture,  and  in  china  are 
productive  of  the  most  useful  type  of  cultivated  taste.  All 
artisanship  leads  to  art. 

I  have  tried  to  show  by  this  brief  enumeration  of  a  few 
typical  industries  the  wealth  of  possibilities  in  a  field  vital 
to  us  all  but  of  which  most  of  us  are  profoundly  ignorant. 
As  I  have  grouped  these  four  lines  of  work  now  called  manual 
training,  drawing,  domestic  science,  and  domestic  art,  it  per- 


FUNDAMENTAL  VALUES  IN  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION  35 

haps  occurs  to  one  that  nothing  is  included  of  agriculture 
or  other  forms  of  producing  raw  materials.  While  our  broader 
term  industrial  includes  these,  it  is  found  that  for  purposes 
of  classification,  all  of  that  matter  having  to  do  with  pro- 
duction, or  with  scientific  processes,  as  such,  for  the  elementary 
school,  may  well  be  placed  with  the  work  in  nature  study. 
Those  descriptive  phases  of  each  industry  taken  which  cannot 
be  demonstrated  or  observed  first  hand,  together  with  the 
transportation,  trade,  and  allied  activities  in  the  distribution 
of  commodities,  make  up  the  appropriate  subject  matter  of 
industrial  and  commercial  geography.  Although  the  three 
phases  will  constantly  overlap,  points  of  emphasis  may  be 
illustrated  by  the  use  of  one  or  two  units.  In  the  study  of 
iron,  for  example,  the  oxidation  of  iron  by  the  use  of  coke 
in  a  test  tube  or  crucible  as  a  demonstration  of  a  scientific 
process  may  be  clearly  called  nature  study.  Melting  down 
pig  iron  or  making  steel  for  the  purpose  of  casting,  rolling, 
and  milling  and  studying  these  processes  as  typical  of  great 
industrial  operations  together  with  visiting  a  foundry  and 
metal  shop  to  see  the  processes  on  a  larger  scale,  may  be 
called  industrial  art.  Studying  the  location  of  iron  mines  and 
the  methods  of  mining,  the  transportation  of  ores,  the  location 
and  description  of  the  chief  iron  and  steel  plants,  a  considera- 
tion of  the  great  variety  and  character  of  iron  and  steel 
products,  and  the  distribution  and  trade  of  these  products,  are 
appropriate  topics  in  industrial  and  commercial  geography. 
In  the  raising  of  corn,  questions  of  soils,  methods  of  fertiliz- 
ing, drainage,  time  and  methods  of  planting,  cultivation  and 
harvest,  insect  pests,  relation  of  birds  to  corn  growing,  and 
all  other  questions  of  this  kind  until  the  corn  is  placed  upon 
the  market  belong  with  nature  study  or  agriculture.  But 
when  the  corn  is  taken  to  a  starch  factory,  and  the  processes 
of  starch  making  begin,  the  work  is  in  the  field  of  industrial 
art.  The  location  of  corn  belts,  of  starch  factories,  and  the 
transportation  and  trade  of  starch  are  matters  of  geography. 
However,  we  need  think  of  no  hard  and  fast  lines  of  distinc- 
tion. It  is  not  what  we  call  the  work  that  is  essential.  That 


36  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

we  somehow  get  it  provided  for  reasonably  without  crowding 
is  the  essential  point. 

Let  it  be  not  thought  that  the  organization  of  this  type  of 
work  will  over-emphasize  the  utilitarian.  We  are  prone  to 
forget  how  really  little  of  genuine  culture^  the  majority  of 
pupils  get  from  the  elementary  school  as  it  is.  Something 
must  be  done  to  make  the  school  seem,  and  in  fact  be,  more 
really  worth  while.  In  the  report  of  the  Commissioner  of 
Education  for  1908,  we  learn  that  in  1906-07  the  proportion 
of  children  of  school  age,  from  five  to  eighteen  years,  who 
were  actually  attending  school  was  69.6  per  cent.  In  1900 
the  proportion  was  72.4  per  cent.  This  shows  a  loss  of  2.8, 
or  nearly  3  per  cent.  Parents  are  challenging  the  schools 
and  are  permitting,  or  even  encouraging,  their  children  tc 
withdraw  from  school  that  they  may  do  something  useful. 
The  remoteness  of  school  work  from  life  must  be  over- 
come. The  use  of  the  industries  is  basic  as  a  material  out 
of  which  and  upon  which  to  build  that  culture  of  hand  and 
brain  and  soul  which  makes  the  individual  alert,  inventive, 
intelligent,  appreciative,  and  moral  in  any  vocational  activity 
which  either  choice  or  circumstance  may  impose.  Such  treat- 
ment of  the  industries  as  is  proposed  would  vitalize  every 
subject  of  the  school  curriculum.  The  subject  matter  of  arith- 
metic, geography,  history,  and  English  is  largely  the  materials, 
the  sources,  the  relationships,  the  evolution,  and  the  social 
significance  of  man's  activities  in  procuring  food,  clothing, 
and  shelter,  his  first  and  most  fundamental  needs.  Again  I 
would  say,  have  no  fear  of  the  term  utilitarian  as  a  basic 
principle  for  educational  activity.  Culturetriat  is  genuine 
is  founded  upon  and  vitally  involved  in  utilitarian  activities. 
It  is  but  the  expression  of  these  most  fundamental  utilitarian 
and  social  relationships  in  their  idealistic  aspects  that  gives  us 
much  of  our  most  cherished  art,  literature,  and  music. 

By  the  introduction  of  these  forms  of  study  the  method  of 
our  work  is  also  markedly  improved.  Processes  and  prin- 
ciples are  approached  with  a  real  motive.  Situations  are  pre- 
sented as  problems  to  be  solved.  Their  solution  often  involves 


FUNDAMENTAL  VALUES  IN  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION  37 

constructions  in  laboratories  and  shops,  excursions,  investiga- 
tions, and  questions  of  people  and  books.  Throughout,  the 
social  relationships — the  principles  of  interdependence,  need 
of  ethical  co-operation,  and  the  industrial  and  commercial 
unity  of  mankind — may  be  brought  vividly  to  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  pupils.  In  studying  the  evolution  of  vocations, 
institutions,  and  customs  of  the  past — history  in  all  its  phases 
— constant  comparisons  may  be  made  to  show  the  bearings  of 
these  early  developments  upon  conditions  of  the  present.  The 
skill  in  building,  in  the  carving  of  stone,  in  the  making  of 
tapestries,  in  fine  work  in  brass  and  other  metals,  in  painting 
upon  canvas  or  upon  wall  spaces,  in  the  staining  of  glass,  in 
the  making  of  fine  China  and  other  potter's  wares  would  all 
lead  into  appreciative  studies  sooner  or  later  of  such  men 
as  Phidias,  Michael  Angelo,  Raphael,  Christopher  Wren, 
Josiah  Wedgwood,  William  Morris,  and  a  host  of  other  worth- 
ies quite  as  important  as  the  names  of  the  military  heroes 
whose  names  alone  stand  for  history  in  the  minds  of  most 
young  people.  In  present-day  references,  this  work  will 
establish  an  appreciation  of  our  dependence  upon  the  well 
being  of  our  foreign  neighbors  for  supplies  and  markets;  a 
permanent  attitude  of  fellow  feeling  for  mankind  wherever 
found;  and  an  attitude  making  against  prejudice  and  snob- 
bishness. 

It  is  surprising  to  follow  out  the  implications  of  this  study 
of  the  industries  in  their  bearings  upon  the  other  subjects 
of  study.  The  work  is  bristling  with  problems  which  con- 
stitute the  real  materials  of  arithmetic  usable  in  common, 
practical  life.  Arithmetic  should  help  to  teach  us  the  economic 
necessity  of  the  intelligent  use  of  raw  materials,  the  avoid- 
ance of  waste,  and  the  conservation  of  resources,  as  well  as 
its  fundamental  technical  operations.  It  might  easily  be 
shown  that  the  content  of  nearly  every  other  school  subject 
is  vitally  enriched.  Nearly  every  unit  of  appropriate  indus- 
trial subject  matter  reaches  out  into  the  field  of  geology, 
geography,  history,  social  science,  mathematics,  economics, 
literauire  and  art. 


38  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

In  the  reorganization  here  proposed,  there  is  no  enlarge- 
ment of  the  curriculum  in  the  number  of  subjects,  but  rather 
a  reduction.  For  the  four  former  subjects,  drawing,  manual 
training,  domestic  science,  and  domestic  art,  we  shall  now  have 
the  one  subject,  industrial  arts.  This  one  subject,  representing 
a  content  of  thought  and  experience  rich  and  vital  in  human 
values,  may  take  its  place  in  the  elementary  school  as  dignified 
and  respectable  as  geography  or  history  or  arithmetic. 

From  all  points  of  view — that  of  intrinsic  interest  in  the 
content,  that  of  the  vital  relation  between  the  content  and 
life,  that  of  the  more  substantial  bearing  of  the  work  upon 
any  calling  the  child  may  afterward  follow,  that  of  vitalizing 
the  other  subjects  of  study,  and  that  of  making  the  school 
really  democratic  by  furnishing  equal  opportunity  for  the 
development  of  all  kinds  of  normal  minds  and  aptitudes — 
from  all  of  these  points  of  view,  this  plan  seems  to  commend 
itself  as  desirable  for  the  elementary  school. 

For  the  secondary  school  the  problem  changes  somewhat 
by  virtue  of  the  need  for  differentiation  of  courses  for  various 
types  of  students.  When  this  differentiation  rests  upon  the 
natural  basis  of  the  needs  of  growing  children  it  will  certainly 
begin  more  nearly  at  the  close  of  the  sixth  grade  than  of 
the  eighth.  As  has  already  been  suggested,  the  solution  pro- 
posed is  for  a  common,  democratic  secondary  school  with 
courses  of  study  adapted  to  the  needs  of  those  five  groups 
of  life  callings,  the  professional,  commercial,  agricultural, 
industrial  and  household.  That  these  courses  may  be  equally 
democratic,  each  must  be  as  rich  in  educational  or  life  values 
as  any  of  the  others.  Naturally  some  subjects  would  probably 
be  taken  in  common  by  all  students.  But  others  would  be 
elected  because  of  their  bearings  upon  the  natural  interests, 
aptitudes  and  inclinations  of  the  student.  The  chief  concern 
about  any  subject  introduced  should  be  its  richness  in  valid 
educational  content.  If  studies  for  the  industrial  and  house- 
hold arts  groups  are  made  up  largely  of  scientific  and 
geographical  principles  and  problems  in  direct  relationship  to 
shop  and  laboratory  work;  of  the  historic  settings  and  rela- 


FUNDAMENTAL  VALUES  IN  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION  39 

tionships  of  the  industries  as  they  have  developed;  of  the 
larger  economic  and  social  values  of  the  industries;  of  the 
thoughts  and  feelings  enkindled  by  man's  reflection  upon  and 
emotional  interpretation  of  the  meanings  and  higher  signifi- 
cance of  his  work  as  expressed  in  his  literature,  music,  and 
art — (if  the  studies  in  metals,  woods,  and  clays  are  all  shot 
through  and  through  with  these  vital  human  values,  then  will 
the  work  be  truly  educational  and  cultural.  ^  v 

There  would  be  much  concentrated  attention  upon  the 
processes  and  practice  in  the  dominant  industries  studied,  of 
course.  Shop  work  in  wood,  metals,  and  clay  for  boys,  and 
in  textiles  and  foods  for  girls  should  be  as  rigidly  intensive 
and  thorough  for  students  electing  industrial  and  household 
studies  as  are  foreign  languages  for  classical  students.  Appre- 
ciation of  technical  excellence  can  not  be  fully  developed 
without  active  participation  in  production.  Attempts  to  do 
skillful  work  are  necessary  fully  to  appreciate  its  meaning. 
That  "  inner  felt  series/'  so  emphasized  by  Professor  James, 
is  an  essential  to  the  highest  appreciation  in  an  art  activity. 
Probably  two  usual  periods  each  school  day  in  actually  doing 
shop  or  laboratory  work  of  some  kind  could  be  required  and 
justified  on  an  educational  basis.  So  long  as  the  student  is 
dealing  primarily  with  ideas,  with  activities  full  of  meaning, 
and  not  merely  with  hand  manipulations,  the  work  has  educa-  V 
tional  worth. 

I  have  maintained  that  this  is  not  specifically  vocational 
training — no  more  so  for  the  industrial  or  household  or  com- 
mercial groups  of  students  than  is  their  appropriate  work  for 
the  professional  group.  Values  emphasized  throughout  are 
human.  The  end  point  is  primarily  the  intelligent  and  efficient 
development  of  the  boy  and  the  girl,  not  of  the  industrial 
commodities  which  they  are  to  produce.  But  I  believe  it  is 
equally  valid  to  maintain  that  this  form  of  education  is  of  the 
very  highest  value  as  applied  to  vocational  work.  Every 
week  the  boy  spends  in  such  a  school  should  make  him  just 
so  much  better  qualified  to  enter  an  industrial  vocation  with 
power  for  more  rapid  adjustment  to  its  needs,  and  growth 


40  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

toward  mastery  of  its  technic.  Statistics  already  beginning 
to  accumulate  point  to  the  fact  that  a  boy  with  a  high  school 
course  including  industrial  subjects  will  have  a  much  greater 
earning  capacity  in  a  trade  the  second  year  after  graduation 
than  will  the  boy  who  left  school  at  the  beginning  of  the 
secondary  period  and  worked  continuously  at  the  trade  during 
the  whole  four  years  spent  by  the  first  boy  in  school.  From 
the  vocational  standpoint,  viewed  in  its  narrowest  sense,  such 
an  education  pays.  Viewed  from  the  broader  standpoint  of 
citizenship  and  efficient  life  in  its  fulness  there  is  incompar- 
ably more  in  possibility  for  the  boy  with  such  an  education 
than  for  the  boy  without  it. 

In  making  this  appeal  for  a  type  of  public  school  education 
for  industrial  workers,  I  am  not  condemning  the  numerous 
technical,  continuation  and  other  supplementary  schools  found 
in  many  parts  of  our  country  for  those  already  out  of  school 
and  at  work.  Nearly  a  million  young  men  and  women  in  the 
United  States  are  working  in  such  schools  to-day,  be^ 
they  failed  to  obtain  proper  education  in  the  public  schools. 
Many  of  them  do  this  work  in  the  evening  after  the  strenu- 
ous day's  work  of  some  industrial  or  commercial  vocation. 
These  are  young  men  and  women  of  sterling  quality  or  they 
would  not  spend  several  evenings  of  each  week  for  a  number 
of  years  in  their  endeavor  for  self  improvement.  Let  us  have 
such  schools  so  long  as  a  need  exists  for  them.  But  to  me, 
these  one  million  young  people  are  just  one  million  reasons 
why  the  public  elementary  and  secondary  schools  should 
awake  to  their  responsibility  and  so  establish  the  work  of  their 
daily  offerings  that  no  one  may  be  driven  out  of  them  to  secure 
rthy  education.  To  me  this  hue  and  cry  for  separate  and 
numerous  schools  for  industrial  training  is  a  most  scathing 
indictment  of  the  practical  efficiency  and  the  boasted  democracy 
of  our  whole  school  system.  The  Massachusetts  Industrial 
Commission  found,  by  personal  visitations  to  3,157  families 
whose  children  had  dropped  out  of  school  from  the  middle 
and  upper  grades,  that  76  per  cent  of  them  would  have  kept 
the  children  in  school  if  they  had  felt  that  it  was  really  worth 


FUNDAMENTAL  VALUES  IN  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION  41 

while.  The  whole  discussion  on  this  question  is  a  direct 
charge  that  the  subject  matter,  interests,  and  methods  of  the 
schools  are  remote  from  the  real,  vital,  life  business  of  our  \ 
day.  There  is  a  valid  demand  that  the  materials  and  work 
of  the  schools  should  be  all  shot  through  with  the  most  funda- 
mental relationships  of  daily  life  activities.  Not  the  organiza- 
tion of  a  new  kind  of  school,  nor  yet  the  introduction  of  new 
subjects  into  the  curriculum  is  the  permanent  solution  of  this 
problem.  It  lies  rather  in  the  building  over  of  our  common 
subjects  of  study  to  fit  the  needs  and  interests  of  our  day. 
And  this  is  just  as  true  of  the  secondary  school  as  of  the  ele- 
mentary school. 

So  far,  I  have  tried  to  indicate  that  the  industrial  arts 
rightly  interpreted  contain  a  rich  and  worthy  body  of  thought 
and  experience,  and  that  properly  organized  they  involve  the 
revitalizing  of  practically  the  whole  school  curriculum.  May 
we  now  dwell  for  a  little  upon  the  larger  social  and  cultural 
elements  involved  in  their  appropriate  study.  I  have  alluded 
to  the  fact  that  as  a  common  humanity  we  have  more  interests 
and  qualities  which  are  alike  than  which  are  different.  In 
practically  all  of  the  great  life  values  by  which  we  measure 
human  worths,  our  standards  are  wholly  independent  of  voca- 
tions, as  such.  To  confine  effort  to  those  processes  alone  by 
which  man  secures  food,  clothing  and  shelter  stops  at  a  point 
which  is  on  the  same  level  as  the  dominant  life  interests  of 
squirrels,  rabbits  and  wolves — the  provision  of  mere  creature 
comforts.  The  higher  ideals  of  human  life  are  above  this 
plane.  Making  book  racks,  or  sewing  on  buttons,  or  forging 
cold  chisels,  or  making  soap,  are,  in  themselves,  not  worth  „. 
much  in  relation  to  those  higher  values  of  love,  social  service, 
contemplation  of  the  meanings  of  life,  and  the  enjoyment  of 
the  products  of  art,  literature,  music  and  social  intercourse. 
Thousands  upon  thousands  of  our  working  people  are  denied 
most  of  these  higher  privileges  under  present  school  and  social 
conditions.  Many,  perhaps  even  more  of  us,  are  so  uncon- 
scious of  these  conditions  and  limitations  that  we  feel  no 
obligation  or  opportunity  to  remove  them.  By  many  who  do 


42  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

know  these  repugnant  and  unwholesome  conditions,  they  are 
ignored.  In  our  short-sighted  way,  we  are  sometimes  even 
advocating  and  encouraging  a  system  of  narrow  vocational 
teaching  which  will  still  further  exploit  the  helplessness  of 
the  workingman  and  draw  more  closely  the  limitations  about 
the  lives  of  his  children.  Not  a  little  of  the  advocacy  of  voca- 
tional training  of  to-day  is  directly  encouraging  the  evils  of 
child  labor.  Not  a  little  of  it  is  directly  preparing  men  to 
attack  our  property,  our  institutions,  and  even  our  lives  in 
their  attempts  to  cure  evils  of  which  they  are  the  victims  but 
whose  causes  they  radically  misunderstand.  The  problems 
of  democracy  can  not  be  settled  by  dynamite  nor  by  the  dis- 
trust and  opposition  of  classes  whose  interests  are  really  com- 
mon. Are  not  these  questions  of  the  political  and  social  lives 
and  ideals  of  our  industrial  people  of  as  vital  significance  to 
us  as  their  capacity  for  material  production?  Let  us  look 
into  certain  facts  that  we  may  interpret  their  bearings. 

In  the  manufacturing  industries  of  the  United  States,  there 
were  at  work  in  1900,  over  168.000  children  under  sixteen 
years  of  age,  both  an  actual  and  a  proportionate  increase  over 
1890.  In  the  report  of  the  Government  Investigation  Corn- 
ion  on  the  condition  of  women  and  child  wage  earners 
in  the  United  States,  just  issued,  we  find  that  in  New  York 
City,  in  one  of  the  largest  industries  96.6  per  cent  of  the 
factories  employing  women  and  children  were  violating  some 
provision  of  the  child  labor  laws.  Thirty-three  per  cent  of 
the  factories  visited  violated  at  least  one  of  the  provisions  of 
the  law  regulating  the  hours  of  labor  for  women  and  girls. 
In  some  of  our  states  men  are  working  twelve  or  fourteen 
hours  a  day  for  seven  days  a  week  while  other  men  are  out 
of  work,  driven  to  chanty  or  crime  to  support  their  families. 
Laxness  everywhere  prevails  in  the  enforcement  of  the  laws 
we  have  to  protect  children  and  other  workers.  But  in  the 
matter  of  legislation  itself  the  story  is  even  more  dishearten- 
ing. It  is  doubtful  whether  in  a  single  state  the  workman  is 
fully  protected  from  loss  of  life  or  injury  by  compensation 
from  the  employer  in  those  vocations  involving  risk  of  life 


FUNDAMENTAL  VALUES  IN  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION  43 

or  limb.  Courts  even  interpret  constitutions  as  placing  prop- 
erty rights  above  human  rights.  Seven  of  our  states  exempt 
children  entirely  from  most  of  the  restrictions  on  child  labor 
in  the  canning  industries  on  the  ground  that  these  industries 
deal  with  perishable  materials — thus  setting  a  higher  value  on 
sweet  corn,  tomatoes  and  beans  than  upon  child  life  and  its 
rights  to  natural  growth! 

Ten  states  permit  children  under  fourteen  to  work  in  fac- 
tories and  workshops.  Eight  states  still  let  boys  of  twelve  work 
in  mines.  Fifteen  states  permit  children  under  sixteen  to  work 
at  night.  Thirty-five  states  do  not  have  the  protection  of  the 
eight  hour  day  for  their  working  children.  Although  given 
expression  over  half  a  century  ago  in  England,  Mrs.  Brown- 
ing's "  Cry  of  the  Children  "  is  charged  with  as  much  mean- 
ing and  need  for  response  in  America  to-day.  As  was  true 
then,  also  to-day,  many  children — 

" are  weeping  in  the  playtime  of  the  others, 

In  the  country  of  the  free 

They  know  the  grief  of  man  without  its  wisdom; 
They  sink  in  man's  despair  without  its  calm; 
Are  slaves  without  the  liberty  of  Christdom; 
Are  martyrs  by  the  pang  without  the  palm." 

And  to  those  who  know  details  of  shop  life,  and  of  the 
home  life  in  the  thirteen  thousand  tenement  houses  in  New 
York  City  licensed  for  the  making  and  finishing  of  clothing 
where  the  labor  of  all  members  of  the  family  can  be  utilized 
without  reference  to  age  or  factory  law,  Thomas  Hood's 
"  Song  of  the  Shirt  "  chants  a  message  as  true  for  us  to-day 
as  it  was  a  century  ago  in  a  land  across  the  sea.  Women, 
men,  and  children  as  well,  here: 

" Stitch— stitch— stitch, 

In  ooverty,  hunger  and  dirt, 
Sewing  at  once  with  a  double  thread, 
A  shroud  as  well  as  a  shirt." 

Government  agents  found  such  women  and  men  working 
on  garments  while  children  in  the  house  were  suffering  from 


44  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

contagious  diseases,  these  garments  to  be  sent  out  to  the  trade 
all  over  our  country.  In  1822,  Daniel  Webster,  in  his  Ply- 
mouth Oration  uttered  these  words:  "I  fear  that  they  (the 
people)  may  place  too  implicit  confidence  in  their  public 
servants,  and  fail  properly  to  scrutinize  their  conduct;  that  in 
this  way  they  may  be  dupes  of  designing  men  and  become  the 

instruments  of  their  undoing "     In  verification  of 

this  prophecy,  note  the  words  of  one  of  these  Xew  York 
employers  who  finds  home  work  profitable:  "  If  public  opinion 
is  against  tenement-made  goods  it  cuts  no  figure  whatever." 
And  this  in  a  democracy  where  the  sovereign  power  lies  in  this 
same  public  opinion  in  just  that  measure  in  which  it  chooses 
to  exert  itself!  One  is  reminded  very  much  of  the  story  of 
a  certain  man  who  went  down  from  Jerusalem  to  Jericho  and 
fell  among  thieves;  and  all  of  those  upon  whom  fortune  had 
imposed  the  really  greatest  obligation  for  helpful  service 
passed  by  upon  the  other  side.  Democracy  can  prevail  among 
a  people  only  by  developing  conceptions  of  social  obligations 
and  duty  which  will  make  vocational  differences  in  life  sink 
into  relative  insignificance  beside  the  greater  common  well- 
being  of  our  whole  people.  The  problem  includes  both  the 
worker  himself  and  those  whom  he  has  trusted  with  political 
and  other  social  authority  and  responsibility.  Justice  and 
intelligence  in  those  who  are  led  must  find  co-operative  justice 
and  intelligence  in  their  leaders.  Common  ideals  must  actu- 
ate both. 

In  seeking  for  this  common  denominator  of  experience  in 
establishing  common  ideals,  I  submit  that  the  same  great 
appeals  made  to  men  and  women  of  culture  by  the  best 
products  of  man's  creative  genius  are  universal.  The  same 
masterpieces  of  literature,  art,  and  music  which  stimulate 
appreciation,  aspiration,  and  deeds  of  service  among  men  and 
women  who  practice  law,  medicine  and  theology  appeal  just 
as  strongly  to  men  and  women  who  practice  in  woodwork, 
metals,  or  textiles  when  these  masterpieces  are  presented  to 
them  aright.  When  dramas  or  concerts  of  a  high  order  are 


FUNDAMENTAL  VALUES  IN  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION  45 

offered  in  the  New  Theatre,  or  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House, 
or  in  the  parks  especially  to  the  people  of  industrial  and  com- 
mercial vocations,  our  newspaper  editors  manifest  surprise 
that  these  people  are  so  appreciative,  and  so  uplifted.  It  would 
only  be  surprising  if  they  were  not.  The  distribution  of 
human  nature  in  its  fundamental  elements  is  democratic. 

Securing  a  point  of  contact  for  the  working  man  with  the 
products  of  genius  other  than  that  which  is  mechanical  seems 
to  be  one  of  the  great  difficulties.  This  difficulty  certainly  lies 
partly  in  the  deplorably  low  and  insufficient  ideals  and  meth- 
ods in  the  selecting  and  teaching  of  masterpieces  in  literature, 
art,  music,  and  history  in  the.  public  schools.  The  narrow- 
ness in  selection  and  the  academic  method  of  instruction  both 
contribute  to  the  sad  fact  that  these  subjects  often  fail  entirely 
to  awaken  any  appreciative  response  in  the  boys  and  girls 
to  whom  they  are  taught.  The  literature,  art,  and  music  do 
not  all  need  to  be  about  industrial  activities  to  reach  the  life 
interests  of  the  individual  workers.  They  too  have  the  prob- 
lems and  fears  and  hopes  that  find  comfort  in  the  expressions 
of  the  best  thoughts  and  feelings  of  the  master  poets,  artists, 
and  musicians.  Man  must  have  an  anchorage  in  something 
of  permanent  worth  to  which  he  may  relate  the  efforts  of 
his  daily  life.  "  Man's  reach  should  exceed  his  grasp,"  said 
Browning's  Del  Sarto.  It  is  perspective,  character,  idealism, 
appreciation  of  higher  possibilities  that  all  men  need  to  make 
them  rise  to  realization  of  their  fullest  capacities.  "  The  hand 
can  never  execute  anything  higher  than  the  character  can 
inspire,"  said  Emerson. 

Our  workingman's  character  is  our  concern  quite  as  much 
as  the  cunning  of  his  hand.  To  develop  this  attitude  of  mind 
that  will  give  the  man  an  appreciation  of  the  meaning  and 
significance  of  his  work  is  the  problem.  That  great  and  un- 
realized possibilities  lie  in  the  appeals  of  the  literary  master- 
pieces which  might  be  appropriately  used  in  schools,  an  exam- 
ination of  available  material  will  certainly  reveal.  Points  of 
contact  almost  direct  with  the  craftsman's  work  are  found  in 
the  best  contributions  of  the  great  masters.  Go  with  George 


46  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

Eliot  into  the  shop  of  one  Antonio  Stradivarius,  a  maker  of 
violins,  and  hear  his  words  to  his  profligate  artist  friend: 

"  \Yho  draws  a  line  and  satisfies  his  soul, 
Making  it  crooked  where  it  should  be  straight? 

God  be  praised, 

Antonio  Stradivarius  has  an  eye 

That  winces  at  false  work  and  loves  the  true. ... 

'Tis  God  gives  skill. 

But  not  without  men's  hands.    He  could  not  make 

Antonio  Stradivari's  violins 

Without  Antonio." 

This  conception  of  the  working-man's  co-operation  with 
God  in  the  progressive  creation  of  the  social  world  lifts  the 
craftsman  from  the  plane  of  artisanship  to  that  of  art,  no 
matter  what  the  work  may  be.  Emerson  identifies  man  with 
the  Creator  in  this  resolution  of  man's  world  to  his  needs  in 
the  lines: 

"  The  hand  that  rounded  Peter's  dome, 
And  groined  the  aisles  of  Christian  Rome 
Wrought  in  a  sad  sincerity; 
Himself  from  God  he  could  not  free; 
lie  huilded  better  than  he  knew; — 
The  conscious  stone  to  beauty  grew." 

The  heroism  of  genius  in  the  service  of  industry  is  appre- 
ciated and  exalted  again  and  again  in  the  messages  of  litera- 
ture. Longfellow  pays  high  tribute  to  the  world's  great  pot- 
ters in  his  Kcramtts.  He  also  shows  his  appreciation  of  the 
craftsman's  own  delight  in  his  work  as  his  Michael  Angelo 
says : 

"  In  happy  hours,  when  the  imagination 
Wakes  like  a  wind  at  midnight,  and  the  soul 
Trembles  in  all  its  leaves,  it  is  a  joy 
To  be  uplifted  upon  its  wings,  and  listen 
To  the  prophetic  voices  in  the  air 
That  call  us  onward.     Then  the  work  we  do 
Is  a  delight,  and  the  obedient  hand 

.  er  grows  weary " 

Shakespeare,  Browning,  Tennyson,  Kipling,  Carlyle,  George 
Eliot,  Dickens.  Victor  Hugo,  Emerson  and  many  others  whose 
perspective  of  social  relationships  was  broad  and  deep,  have 
given  us  much  that  has  peculiar  fitness  for  the  man  whose 


FUNDAMENTAL  VALUES  IN  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION   47 

vocational  contribution   is   made  by   the  united   cunning  of 
brain  and  hand. 

Would  not  the  acquaintance  of  the  boy  and  girl  with  such 
master  appeals  from  literature  showing  that  there  are  points 
of  common  interest  with  their  everyday  work  lead  them  to 
set  a  new  value  upon  literary  treasures?  It  is  not  his  work 
in  itself  that  is  so  destructive  to  the  spiritual  life  of  the  indus- 
trial worker.  It  is  rather  that  he  has  so  little  else  in  his  life. 
In  Shop,  Browning  utters  a  protest  against  the  narrowness 
of  life  which  is  so  characteristic  of  our  day : 

"  Because  a  man  has  shop  to  mind 
In  time  and  plaoe,  since  flesh  must  live, 
Needs  spirit  lack  all  life  behind. 
All  stray  thoughts,  fancies  fugitive. 
All  loves  except  what  trade  can  give?" 

One  of  the  great  purposes  of  any  worthy  education  is  to 
teach  men  and  women  how  to  use  their  time  of  leisure  so 
that  it  is  an  uplift  to  them  rather  than  a  stumbling  block. 
They  must  be  taught  to  look  up  for  their  pleasures  and  not 
down.  If  history,  literature,  art,  and  music  are  to  reach  out 
through  life  and  enrich  its  leisure  as  well  as  to  dignify  and 
ennoble  its  work,  the  interest  in  these  and  the  appreciation  of 
their  possibilities  must  be  cultivated  in  the  schools.  History 
certainly  has  a  large  functional  mission  here  in  the  life  of  the 
workingman.  We  are  the  sum  of  the  whole  past;  and  the 
whole  past  is  needed  to  explain  us.  I  mean  by  history  that 
crystallized  experience  of  the  race  in  solving  the  problems 
of  human  progress,  that  study  of  the  past  which  enables  the 
student  to  penetrate  and  interpret  the  life  about  him.  It  is 
that  study  of  the  past  which  will  stimulate  activity,  cultivate 
appreciation  of  values  as  to  what  is  worth  while,  develop 
insight  and  judgment  in  making  choices,  enter  functionally 
into  the  direction  of  experience.  "  The  highest  effect  of  art 
is  to  make  new  artists,"  said  Emerson.  Nothing  so  stimu- 
lates creative  activity  as  the  proper  study  of  history.  Our 
industrial  worker  needs  to  know  Palissy,  Watt,  Arkwright, 
Morse,  and  Edison,  but  quite  as  much  he  needs  to  know 


48  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

Moses,  and  Homer,  and  Dante,  and  Shakespeare,  and 
Beethoven,  and  Wagner.  Practical  progress  is  forced  upon 
him  by  the  workaday  world,  but  he  can  win  for  himself  the 
currents  of  spiritual  force  and  stimulation  from  the  supermen 
of  the  past  in  these  idealistic  fields  only  by  communion  with 
them.  Literature,  art,  and  music  are  studied  appropriately 
in  the  public  schools  only  when  they  cultivate  interest  in  and 
appreciation  of  man's  evolution  toward  a  fuller  expression  of 
his  ideas  and  ideals  of  the  true,  the  beautiful,  and  the  good. 
Industry  itself  may  be  so  studied  that  it  will  lead  one  to  appre- 
ciate that  its  ultimate  end  is  to  utilize  the  material  world  in 
the  development  of  man's  best  qualities — that  this  is  really 
most  of  all  a  psychological  and  social  world  and  not  a  world" 
merely  of  material  problems  and  processes. 

The  need  has  never  been  greater  for  the  individual  to 
exert  a  wise  and  intelligent  force  for  social  control.  The 
live  political  and  social  issues  of  to-day  are  of  especial  sig- 
nificance to  the  working  man.  Some  of  the  most  pressing 
problems  confronting  us  are  those  of  the  relationship  of 
organized  capital  and  organized  labor,  of  property  rights  and 
human  rights  as  involved  in  the  claims  of  working  men  and 
women  to  reasonable  protection  of  life,  limb,  and  health, 
physical  and  moral;  of  the  elimination  of  the  evils  of  child 
labor:  of  the  regulation  of  predatory  corporations  and  inter- 

of  the  appropriate  disposal  of  public  servants  who  vio- 
late their  trust ;  and  of  other  large  questions  of  social  read- 
justment, all  involving  every  citizen  directly  or  indirectly. 
That  such  tragedies  as  the  recent  Washington  Place  fire  in 
Xew  York  City,  the  removal  of  John  Mitchell  from  the 

•nal  Civic  Federation  by  the  Miners'  Union,  and  the 
method  of  selecting  the  junior  senator  from  Illinois,  should 
all  occur  within  a  past  so  recent  indicates  the  need  of  an 
awakened  public  conscience  as  applied  to  all  forms  of  social 
intelligence  and  social  control.  Moreover  a  desire  for  a  larger 

nal  participation  in  political  life  is  surely  asserting  itself. 
The  certainty  of  the  early  provision  for  the  popular  election 
of  United  States  senators,  the  general  enactment  of  primary 


^FUNDAMENTAL  VALUES  IN  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION    49 

election  laws,  the  extension  of  the  right  of  initiative  and 
referendum,  and  of  the  attainment  of  suffrage  responsibilities 
by  women  all  mark  a  very  definite  forward  step  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  democracy.  With  over  seventy-five  per  cent  of  our 
people  engaged  in  productive  industry  of  some  kind,  we 
must  look  well  to  the  development  in  these  industrial  groups 
of  that  insight,  intelligence,  and  appreciation  necessary  to  their 
functioning  as  sovereign  citizens.  If  we  are  really  to  have 
a  democracy  it  must  be  an  intelligent  democracy  truly  appre- 
ciative of  the  highest  human  values. 

In  conclusion,  a  brief  summary  of  the  larger  points  in  the 
foregoing  is  offered.  First,  it  has  been  proposed  that  any 
education  of  vital  worth  must  look  fundamentally  to  the  de- 
velopment of  those  qualities  and  functions  which  make  us  alike 
more  than  of  those  which  make  us  different,  not  ignoring 
in  any  sense  those  individual  differences  taken  account  of  by 
sound  pedagogy;  second,  that  the  subject  matter  of  the  indus- 
trial arts  includes  a  body  of  thought  rich  in  values  for  human 
well-being;  third,  that  the  appropriate  development  of  the 
curriculum  in  elementary  and  secondary  schools  with  indus- 
trial arts  properly  co-ordinated  provides  reorganizing  stand- 
ards of  value,  and  motivation  for  parts  of  nearly  every  other 
subject;  and  fourth,  that  in  the  elementary  and  secondary 
schools  the  coming  into  a  participating  and  appreciating  ex- 
perience of  this  body  of  thought  is  of  more  importance  than 
the  development  of  mere  technical  skill  in  the  manipulation 
of  materials.  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  this  discussion 
has  not  included  the  specific  trade  training  represented  by 
trade  courses  or  trade  schools. 

I  have  in  no  measure  been  insensible  to  the  importance  and 
values  of  motor  development  and  of  all  forms  of  manual 
activity  involved  in  industrial  arts  processes,  nor  have  I  mini- 
mized these.  I  have  but  tried  to  impress  the  principle  that 
these  activities  are  but  parts  of  a  larger  problem  which  is 
no  less  than  the  development  of  efficient  manhood  and  woman- 
hood. Vocation  is  a  means  to  an  end.  Life  in  its  most 
abundant  form  is  above  merely  making  a  living. 


50  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

Industrial  Arts,  as  a  school  subject,  is  the  distilled  experi- 
ence of  man  in  his  resolution  of  natural  materials  to  his  needs, 
for  creature  comfort,  to  the  end  that  he  may  more  richly 
live  his  spiritual  life.  But  this  experience  must  ever  be  in  due 
relationship  to  the  experience  of  the  race  in  living  this  spiritual 
life  itself  or  our  true  purpose  is  defeated.  The  making  of 
products  in  wood,  metals,  textiles,  clay,  or  food  materials,  in 
themselves,  has  relatively  little  of  high  spiritual  value.  The 
test  of  all  lies  in  the  spirit,  the  meaning,  the  significance  of 
the  work.  Working  for  the  product  alone  or  for  the  pay  alone 
is  altogether  different  from  working  in  the  spirit  of  Stradi- 
varius  when  he  proclaimed  that  not  God  Himself  "  could 
make  Antonio  Stradivari's  violins  without  Antonio." 

The  maximum  of  industrial  efficiency  is  greatest  among  / 
men  who  feel  the  relationship  of  their  work  to  life  as  a  whole. 
\Ve  have  no  fear  of  a  mere  utilitarianism  from  a  study  of  the 
industries  if  it  is  made  but  the  basis  and  point  of  departure 
to  values  of  permanent  worth,  inspiring  to  intelligent;  crea-  \ 
tive  service.  No  activity  in  human  life  can  be  made  really 
significant  unless  we  interpret  this  as  most  fundamentally  a 
world  of  life  purposes,  moral  worths,  and  spiritual  ideals. 
The  Master  teacher  gave  us  the  watchword  for  guidance  long 
ago  when  he  proclaimed  that  "  Life  is  more  than  meat  and 
the  body  is  more  than  raiment." 

The  problem  of  to-day  is  that  of  a  fundamental  readjust- 
ment of  the  school's  work  in  terms  of  present-day  life  needs, 
all  viewed  in  their  proper  perspective.  Under  this  readjust- 
ment the  industrial  arts  will  receive  that  attention  and  that  / 
emphasis  which  are  an  appropriate  measure  of  their  impor- 
tance in  life  itself. 


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